Cruising the Aisles
by Aurelianella
Summary: When Starfire goes to the grocery store by herself to try to learn more about human culture, Robin decides to trail after her to make sure she's okay on her own. A chance encounter leaves Robin frantically trying to cover his tracks as his worst enemies team up against him.
1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note: **I do not own the Titans or anything else from the DC universe.

* * *

She didn't need to know that I was keeping an eye on her. As she walked up and down the grocery store aisles reading the different labels, I took up a position at the end, pushing my black-tinted shades further up the bridge of my nose. I resist the urge to run a hand through my hair, but I'd spent too much time combing it out of the spiky style I preferred and back into my face to mess it up now. I rested my forearms on the shopping cart handle, watching Starfire out of my peripheral vision while I pretended to check the price of ground beef.

Every time a new shopper entered the aisle she was in they always did a double-take. I couldn't blame them. She was like nothing we had on earth. Her skin was an exotic mango, and that hair… I've got a thing for red-heads, I admit it. Babs' hair is a bright carrot orange, but Starfire's hair is like a summer sunset, all fiery and red. Catching the unsettling train of my thoughts, I turned back to the selection of hamburger meat. I needed to get a hold of myself. Heroes don't date teammates. It was one of those rules that Bruce drilled into my head, as if he had always known that one day I would set out to lead a team of my own and find myself in exactly this situation. Damn him, it wouldn't have surprised me if he had somehow manipulated me into forming the Titans. The thought left a bitter taste in my mouth. I chanced a glance back at Starfire, though I knew she hadn't moved from where she was comparing brands of green beans and probably trying understand why the same thing came in so many different packages.

I sighed. If she was one of Bruce's tests, I was probably destined to fail.

She bent over to return the cans to the bottom shelf, and my eyes nearly crossed as her tight purple mini-skirt slid up the back of her thighs and threatened to reveal the curves of that perfect bottom that I'd been studiously pretending not to notice whenever she glided past me in the common room.

From the other end of the aisle, a tall guy wearing a thick padded jacket came around the corner. At first he simply scanned the top shelf for whatever brand of tomato sauce he was searching for, but then he caught sight of the goddess standing a few feet away. My hands tightened around the handle of the shopping cart as I saw his face go slack. Judging from the way she was bent over, he was probably getting an eyeful. She did like her low-cut tops… _Don't do it, Dick_, I told myself, watching the guy make the decision to approach her. _She can take care of herself._ I knew she could. Heck, she could flatten _me_ with one hand tied behind her back, but I still didn't like the way the guy was staring at her with his cocky little smile that told me he would probably try some stupid pick-up line I'd end up having to explain to her later.

"What's for dinner tonight, babe?" he asked, sidling right up to her.

My eyes rolled back into my head and I covered my face with my hand. This was going to be even more painful than I thought.

Starfire lifted her head and slowly straightened to her full height. I hid a smirk as the guy tilted his head back to maintain eye contact. Starfire was nearly six-foot of sculpted muscle—not to mention a few generous curves. Already the guy was rethinking his decision to approach.

"Excuse me?"

"You making dinner for your man?" he tried again. Once again stupidity won out over good sense.

She tossed her hair over her shoulder, clearly trying to make sense of his comment..

"I have no man. Cyborg does most of the cooking in the tower." She was so innocent. It was one of the things I loved about her—_Yikes!_—I mean one of the things that I found appealing in a strictly platonic way.

"Baby, if the little batwing isn't man enough to scoop you up, then let me pick up his slack. My place is only a couple of blocks from here. I could show you what you've been missing…"

"If you are referring to Robin then I assure you he has made no mistakes where I am concerned. If not for his kindness I would never have stayed on this planet. And as you have insulted him I have no intention of accompanying you to your home." I doubt the guy had ever heard such an eloquent shut down in his life. He was looking a little dazed again, like he was trying to decipher the linguistic smack-down she had laid on him. I grinned, more than a little smug to hear that she had chosen to stay on Earth because of me. But the loser just refused to give up.

"Look, you don't have to be like that. I don't mean any harm," he said, stepping closer. A warning prickle worked its way up my spine. If he touched her…

"I assure you that I have no fear that you could cause me harm," said Starfire with a trace of arrogance I'd never seen in her before. My eyebrows lifted with interest. I almost wanted the creep to keep going just to see what she would do about it. Turns out he wasn't quite that stupid.

"Man, whatever _bitch_," he muttered. She turned away, completely unfazed, but I bristled. No way did he just call her that. I rotated my head on my neck until I felt the vertebrae give a satisfying pop. Leaning over my cart, I glided into the next aisle where he had stopped to scowl at the rows of cereal. He didn't even notice me walking toward him. _Moron_. I'm always aware of who's around me. For example, I knew there were exactly thirty people in the grocery store at that moment, including the five cashiers, the four clerks stocking the shelves, Starfire, myself, and her inept Romeo. We were nearly even with each other when he realized I was there. He twitched, and then jerked his thumb toward the other aisle with a conspiratorial grin.

"Hey man, did you get a load of Legs over there? I thought I'd seen it all but that's the finest piece of ass I've ever—"

He didn't get the chance to finish before he had my forearm at his throat.

"Shut up," I said quietly, "just shut up." He struggled and even tried to throw a punch at me, but I caught his amateur swing in midair and simply held it in place while he tried to put all his weight behind it. It didn't budge. I felt him gulp.

"That girl that you're talking about happens to be a close, personal friend of mine. Now the only reason you're not charbroiled right now is because she doesn't know that you just insulted her. But I do."

"And who are you, her boyfriend? Get off me!" he said loudly. He was trying to appear tough, but I could tell he wanted someone to hear and come to his rescue. His salvation was coming around the corner dressed in thigh-high purple boots. I smirked as he realized he was caught between a rock and a hard place.

Starfire glanced between us, registering the tension. She wouldn't recognize me, not without my mask and my hair combed in a different style. She'd never seen me out of uniform, and I had purposefully chosen a bulkier jacket to disguise myself. He glanced between us again and then chose the cowards way out, slinking away again with his tail between his legs. When he was gone, Starfire looked at me with a strange, knowing smile.

"Do I know you?" she asked. The way she said it made me uneasy. My hand twitched to run through my hair but I resisted the urge, knowing it would give me away faster than slapping a mask on my face and pinning a yellow cape to my back.

"I don't think so, cutie," I said, flashing her a grin before I rolled past. I wheeled my cart all the way to the front of the store. She didn't need me watching over her. She could handle herself. Still, while I was here…

A bouquet of flowers arrived later that night at the Tower. At first Starfire didn't know what to do with them, but as soon as the smell of roses hit her nose she inhaled deeply and hugged them to her chest.

"Um Star," said Beast Boy with an uneasy glance my way. "Who's sending you flowers?" I folded my arms across my chest and did my best to look stern. The others couldn't know or else I'd never hear the end of it. As it was, Cyborg was studying me out of the corner of his eye with a little too much suspicion for my liking. I put on my leader face and plucked the card out of the enormous bouquet. Flicking it open I read the words out loud for the group to hear:

_See you around, cutie._

_—X_

Oh how I would regret that line…


	2. Chapter 2

The one downside to having the flexibility of an acrobat is that I can literally kick myself when I do something stupid, and sending Starfire those flowers was probably the worst idea I've had since choosing the color scheme for my uniform. Oh sure, all that night and the next day she floated around the tower with a sweet dreamy look on her face that made me want to tell her it was me just so I could see her light up like a candle for me the way she did to those flowers. It wasn't until she started asking questions that things turned south.

"What does the X mean?" I heard her asking Raven as I walked into the common room in search of breakfast. Raven was seated on the edge of the couch, practically hugging the armrest in an effort to curl away from Starfire, who was clutching the little card tight against her chest. Apparently giving relationship advice was not something she was prepared to do before she'd had her morning cup of tea. Oblivious, or determined not to be shaken off, Starfire flew upside-down over Raven's head so that they were face to face. Her scarlet hair fell in a curtain over the arm rest. Raven rolled her eyes.

"It means you have a secret admirer, Starfire," she said flatly. "The X stands for anonymous."

"A secret admirer?"

I leaned against the kitchen counter, watching them with a faint smile. Raven was too busy trying to make herself invisible to notice. It felt good seeing them like that. Trust me, if Raven didn't want to be bothered she would have simply evaporated into a portal of dark magic. Her refusal to be drawn in was as much of an act as my pretending that I only thought of Star as a friend. As much as Raven preferred to be left alone, she needed Starfire's company as much as Starfire needed another girl in the tower to talk to.

Starfire turned and saw me standing there watching them. Quickly, I turned the smile into a look of disapproval and pushed away from the counter.

"You're a celebrity now, Star," I said. "I'm surprised you haven't gotten fan mail already. You have tons of admirers. Try not to let it get to you." It stung me a little to tell her that. Seeing how excited she was by this little present I could only imagine what would happen if she found out about some of the crazy things the fanatics sent her that I managed to screen away before they got to our mailroom. There are some sick people out there, and the less she knew about the people tattooing her name or face onto their bodies, or mailing live animals, or surgically altering their appearance to look like her the better off she was. And before you go thinking that I'm some possessive jerk that's keeping Starfire alone in the dark, I do it for all of us. The day the Tower went up we had such a massive surge of fan mail delivered to our doorstep that I realized we needed to have it sent to a separate address or else we'd never be able to walk out the door without tripping over some box or another. We have a security team that goes through all the emails and a fan group that even takes time out to respond to the more heartfelt letters. That's more than I can say for Bruce. Fan mail doesn't exactly find its way into the secret entrance of the Bat Cave—the whole secret entrance thing kind of gets in the way. Still, I'd had to go through it on the public side, even when I was a kid traveling with Mom and Dad we had fans.

"Oh Robin, but this is different," Starfire said as if she was explaining to a child that red and yellow weren't the same color. "He is not some faceless admirer. I have met him."

_Uh oh._ My stomach did an uncomfortable flip-flop as I realized what I had done. I didn't have to work hard to look displeased.

"You met him? Where?"

"The grocery store. He…" she started to say something, thought better of it, then giggled. My heart turned to lead then sank to my stomach. _Me_. She was thinking of me, except in her eyes it wasn't me. _Way to go, Grayson. _It wasn't Robin she was cooing over, it was Dick Grayson—not even Dick Grayson since I'd been trying to be as inconspicuous as possible. All those years of shaking my head watching Clark lose Lois to Superman, I'd turned around and let Dick Grayson steal Starfire away from Robin.

"Something wrong, Robin?" asked Raven, who had tilted her head to the side to study me. I flinched. _Right, empath. Divert._ I straightened my shoulders and shook my head.

"Starfire, we're heroes, we don't have time for relationships. They can be used against us by our enemies…"

It was like watching a train wreck. I stood helplessly by and listened as every stupid rule Bruce had ever told me rolled right off my tongue like I bought into it, and she took it to heart. Those green eyes of hers clouded with disappointment before she dropped her head.

"You are right, Robin. He was just an ordinary boy, not a hero like us. It would be wrong of me to put him in danger." _Whoa now, he wasn't _that _ordinary._ She looked way too upset to make me feel good about convincing her to drop it. Trust me to push the girl of my dreams into the arms of another man, another man who just so happened to be myself in disguise, and then convince her to break things off before either me ever got the chance to actually be with her. _God, I make Clark look like a freaking Casanova._

Suddenly the tower alarms blared. Relieved to have a distraction, I dashed to the console in the common room while the girls rushed off to change into their uniforms. By the time we were all assembled I had already traced the alarm back to a warehouse on the docks where some sort of explosion had gone off.

"Starfire, you and I will go on ahead. Cyborg, follow us in the T-car. If anyone was caught in the explosion I don't want to waste any time getting them out." I slammed my fist into the palm of my left hand decisively. Cyborg nodded, and he and Beast Boy were instantly engulfed in a screeching black raven that would transport them down to the ground floor. I turned to look at Starfire. She was looking at the ground, not really paying attention.

"Let's go, Star," I said firmly, holding out my hand. She gave a little start, darted forward, snatched my hand, and then blasted us through the balcony door and out over the harbor. As we flew she readjusted her grip from my wrist to clutching me under my arms. Instinctively I went into a trapeze hold, the same ones my parents and I used to do when I was a kid.

From across the harbor we could see dark smoke clouds.

"Where do you wish to land?" called Starfire. I released her hand to point to a safe spot near the docks. Several of the boats tethered the warehouse had caught fire. There were workers scrambling in all directions to escape the heat. The building creaked and groaned as the flames climbed higher. I caught the nearest worker and swung him around to face me.

"Is anyone still inside?"

The man was terrified. He couldn't have been more than twenty-five, a college kid dressed in a polo and khaki shorts who had probably thought he had scored an easy summer job lounging around on the speed boats. I had to shake him in order to get him to focus enough to give me an answer.

"I don't know, man. It all happened so fast. They could still be in there. I was on my way outside when it blew."

"Starfire!" I released him and pulled my cape tight around me. She dropped down to hold open the door for me. There were flames all around the frame and I could never have opened it without burning myself. Considering how hot her starbolts could get, it would take a lot to actually burn her, not to mention with all the smoke I was virtually blind whereas her vision was close enough to infrared to give her enough sight to work by.

We went in together—not because I thought I would be a lot of help, but because I wasn't about to send one of my teammates into a situation I wouldn't face myself. I kept the cloak over my nose and mouth to filter out some of the smoke. It wasn't helping much, but it was better than nothing.

There were shouts coming from beyond the nearest wall of flames. Starfire lifted me beneath the arms again and dropped me on the other side where I could see an older woman pinned beneath falling debris.

"You're going to be all right," I told her as I bent to inspect the damage. Her leg was crushed. Once we got the bit of roofing off her we would still have to carry her back outside. I say we, but I knew Starfire would be the one doing most of the work. Thankfully my gloves were flame retardant, and I was able to lift up the slab of roof so that Starfire could pull the woman free. I hate feeling helpless when people are in trouble. It doesn't help that I am honestly the weakest member of my team. I break easier and heal slower, but as the leader I can't afford to be weak when others need our help.

"Get her out of here and then come back while I try and find any others."

She didn't like leaving me there. She tilted her head to inspect the roof, and I knew what she was thinking. It could cave in at any moment. But we were Titans and we couldn't leave unless we were sure we had done everything we could to save as many people as possible. We still had time. She hoisted the woman over her shoulder and darted up and away through one of the holes in the roof.

"Hello! Is anyone there?" I called. Sweat poured off me. My skin blistered from the heat. The metal buckles of my uniform burned where they brushed against me. There was no answer. I cupped my hands and tried again.

"Is anyone there!"

"_Hello, Robin_," said a voice so chillingly calm that despite the blazing inferno my blood ran cold. I would know that voice anywhere. I snarled.

"Slade."


	3. Chapter 3

It was like having my skin peeled off my bones. I sank my teeth into my lip until I tasted blood. A cold, wet nose touched my cheek, and I opened my eyes to see Raven, Cyborg, and a green dog kneeling over me. Behind them the sky was a clear, bright blue.

"Man, you had us worried," said Cyborg with a relieved smile. "We thought we'd lost you for sure that time." I tried to speak, but my lips were cracked and blistered and it hurt too much to move. Raven leaned over me again and that awful sensation of having my skin ripped away started all over again. Raven's a half-demon, and demon magic isn't exactly known for being pleasant. To heal me she had to put me back together in reverse. While I couldn't quite remember what had happened, as burns faded and bruises healed I received painful clues of how I had gotten there.

"Where's Starfire?" I asked as soon as my vocal chords were cleared of the smoke I'd inhaled. Beast Boy and Cyborg exchanged a glance, blushed, and then looked away. _The heck…?_

"She's fine," said Raven impatiently, shooting them a look. "When the bomb went off she took most of the blast to save you, and well…" Visions of Starfire torn to pieces by shrapnel flooded my brain. I'm pretty sure my heart stopped beating. Raven put her hand on my chest to push me back down to the ground.

"She needed a fresh uniform," she mumbled. Upon closer inspection even Raven's fair cheeks were tinted pink. My fists clenched.

"She needed a change of clothes?" I repeated flatly. "She left me dying in the middle of the street so she could put on a clean uniform?"

"Dude, she didn't _have_ a uniform!" said Beast Boy, morphing back into his human form. "There was nothing left." My brain short-circuited.

"Portals to Hell for the next idiot that opens his mouth," warned Raven, holding up her hand where a ball of black energy hovered. I don't know if he didn't hear her or just thought she was bluffing, because Beast Boy burst out, "Dude, everyone saw her—" He disappeared in a puff of black smoke. Without another word, Raven returned her attention to healing my injuries, while Cyborg and I exchanged a wide-eyed stare. Raven got no more trouble out of me for the rest of the morning.

I don't really believe she sent him to Hell, but wherever he went, when we returned to the Tower and found him sitting at the kitchen counter with a glass of water in his hand, Beast Boy's eyebrows were singed, he smelled of brimstone, and there was smoke rising from several holes in his black and purple uniform. One look at Raven as she slid casually by, and he promptly pinched his lips together until she disappeared off to her room.

"So Rob, you're sure it was really Slade?" asked Cyborg for the fifth time since I'd told them what had happened in the warehouse. I rolled my eyes.

"Yes, it was him."

"I thought you two just had a cat and mouse thing going. He's never tried to kill you before."

"He didn't try to kill me this time either. He rigged the bomb to explode and tried to get out before it went off. I went after him, thinking I'd have enough time to catch him and get out. It was all a diversion. He wanted to keep us away from whatever his real plan was."

"Man, that's sick! There were people there. Five people were injured-two of them almost killed."

"D'you think I don't know that?" I growled. I knew Cyborg was rattled by what had happened. I was rattled—after all I'd almost died myself. But Slade was a sore spot with me and they all knew it.

"I'll be in my office," I muttered. I needed to check the crime scanners. The explosions at the warf had been little more than a fireworks show. The warehouse was only a storage facility for spare boating equipment. After healing me, Raven interrogated all of the workers that had been on duty, and it didn't take an empath to tell me that they were all too convincingly terrified of what happened to be secretly hired thugs. It had all been so pointless I'd have believed it was just a freak accident if Slade hadn't shown up. If he was involved then there was a bigger game being played. I hated when he was involved. He brought out a side of me I didn't like.

There was a knock on my office door before it slid open to reveal Starfire hovering nervously outside in the hallway. My gaze swept over her, taking in the fresh uniform and examining her skin for burn marks or blisters. There were none. I envied her sometimes. Even with Raven's healing I was still feeling the effects of the blast.

"I came to see for myself that you were unharmed," she said, grabbing her elbow. "It was most distressing to see you…that way." I blinked. Had I really been that bad? Cyborg had said that they'd nearly lost me, but I'd just assumed that I came to the moment Raven started to heal me. Judging by the haunted look in Star's eyes, I must have been out for a while before I was repaired enough to come to.

"Yea, I'm great. Thanks," I said dryly. Even with her standing there my mind was still tugging me back to the crime scans. She nodded. _See, they all knew I was obsessed where Slade was concerned._

"Then I have also come to inform you that I am going to the market that is super. Is there anything you would like me to purchase for you?" I twisted back to my computer screen, nodding vaguely.

"No Star, I'm fine. Besides, I thought you just went to the supermarket the other day. We can't be out of food already." She hesitated.

"No, but I am hoping to meet someone there."

_What?! _I froze. _Crap!_

"You're not talking about your secret admirer are you?" I couldn't help but ask. "Star, I thought we talked about this." I held my breath hoping she would deny it. After our conversation earlier I thought she'd given up on that. Her chin lifted with a flash of defiance, and any hope that I had of her letting it go quickly evaporated.

"It is possible. However, I find that I am able to learn much about your culture while doing the 'browsing' through the shopping aisles. I have found the 'magazines' to be most informative." _Crap, crap, double-crap!_ If she was getting her ideas of our culture from the tabloid rags in the checkout lines then I could only imagine what sort of conclusions she was drawing about our race. I didn't want her to go. She didn't need to keep hoping to run into him—I mean me—again. There was no good reason to tell her not to go. Oh well, if she went and I didn't show, perhaps it would be better in the long run—and besides, I really had to get back to figuring out what Slade was planning.

"Have fun, Star," I said with a tight smile.

"Thank you, I will endeavor to. Oh, and Robin, Cyborg also informed me that a break-in occurred at a laboratory during the time of the explosions in the warehouse. He says that the only thing that was taken was a small shipment of ...xeno...thi..um What is that?" She cocked her head at me in that cute way of hers, waiting for my explanation. I gulped. _Xenothium? Really?_ So that's what Slade was after.

"No idea," I lied.

I debated for a long time whether I would approach Professor Chang as Robin or Dick Grayson. He was the leading expert on the application of Xenothium in teleportation, a field of research being funded exclusively by Wayne Enterprises. If his work had been compromised then I could easily stroll into his office on Bruce's behalf and demand answers. But Dick Grayson didn't show in Jump City. I had vowed to separate Jump City from Gotham. The Titans didn't know who I was—to them I was just Robin, and I liked it that way. It would be too hard to keep up a secret identity living under the same roof with the people I was trying to fool. Still, Dick Grayson would have an easier time than Robin.

I made the right call. The moment I walked through the glass doors to the lobby the receptionist took one look at me, went white as a ghost, and then personally escorted me up the stairs to Professor Chang's office. A quick glance at the woman's nametag told me her name was Erin Simmons. She was in her mid-twenties, and even though I was only sixteen she kept glancing over her shoulder at me like she couldn't quite believe what she was seeing. It's not her fault. I had dressed to impress. I had custom-tailored black slacks, a white collared shirt with the top buttons undone, and black dress shoes polished to a shine. The sleeves of my two-thousand dollar shirt were rolled up to my elbows, and of course I had combed my hair back down into my eyes the way Dick Grayson always wore it. I wore a bored expression, one I've perfected over my years living at Wayne Manor.

"Is there anything else I can get you, Mr. Grayson?"

"Thank you, Erin, but no," I said, all smooth and controlled like I owned the place—well I kinda did. When I said her name she got a little flustered and quickly held open the door to Professor Chang's office to let me in. When he saw who it was, Professor Chang surged to his feet.

He was a thin man, late forties with a ridiculously long mustache I had to work hard not to stare at. He bowed to me, and I inclined my head slightly in return.

"According to our security team there was a break-in this morning. What did they take?" I said, launching straight into my interrogation. The urge to cross my arms and look down my nose at him was strong—it's what I would have done if I'd come as Robin—but instead I shoved my hands in my pockets and held onto my air of utter boredom. Sometimes keeping my mannerisms straight was the hardest part.

"A small store of xenothium was taken, Mr. Grayson. It was a minor setback, not worth bringing you all the way from Gotham." _Interesting._ He didn't want me here. I knew Professor Chang would sell his information to the highest bidder. So far, Wayne Enterprises had managed to be that bidder, but I wondered...

"I'd like to see the progress you've made in your research, Professor."

"Of course, Mr. Grayson. Of course…"


	4. Chapter 4

I had a plan. It wasn't exactly a good plan. Okay, it was more like half a plan, but it was better than nothing.

I followed Professor Chang down a long corridor to a laboratory. He was quick to reassure me that the xenothium-powered weapons he was working on were still secure. He even offered to give me a demonstration of their capabilities. I bided my time, waiting as the lab techs restocked the xenothium that powered the black suit fitted to a white plastic dummy on a clear stand in the center of the room. Just as they were finishing up, I slipped a smoke bomb from my pocket and let it drop to the floor. The gas worked quickly. There wasn't even time for them to press the panic button that would draw security's attention. I sucked in a deep breath and pretended to faint alongside everyone else. I didn't have much time, only ten minutes at most.

The moment I was sure that the last of the techs had fallen, I sprang to my feet, darted to the mannequin and pried off the suit. Tucking it under my arm, I ran to the window, threw it open and gasped in a gulp of fresh air. Less than five minutes left.

Scaling a brick wall in dress shoes is no easy thing, but fortunately, one of the professor's latest inventions was a teleportation device with line-of-sight teleportation, and when I pressed the button located on the suit's utility belt, I was instantly transported to the rooftop. With three minutes left, I pulled out my pocket-sized hacking device that pretended to be an iPhone from my pocket. With two minutes to spare teh security feed was wiped. But I wasn't safe yet. I still had to get away before anyone came looking for me.

I scanned the Jump City skyline for a glimpse of the 4th Street Hotel. Bruce had a penthouse there. But the building was blocked from my view by another skyscraper. I jumped anyway.

In hindsight I probably should have waited for the professor to finish his demonstration before I stole the technology, because I really had no idea what I was doing. As I'd leapt off the edge of the roof and hit the jump button, I must have let my gaze drop, because rather than the rooftop I was aiming for I reappeared with just enough space to slam into the side of a brick wall and crash two stories onto a steel dumpster. More than just my pride was bruised on my way down. My fall had knocked all the wind out of me, and thanks to my metal cushion, half of Jump had probably heard my crash landing. Staring up at the blue sky overhead I didn't have a good enough view to attempt another jump. Groaning, I dumped the stolen suit in the dumpster where I could come back for it later, and rolled off the edge to the ground. My ankle throbbed and I limped to the edge of the alleyway. In the distance I heard a police siren. _Well that was fast. _If the cops were looking for me that meant it was only a matter of time before I had an angry Batman breathing down my neck.

An elderly woman walked past the front of the alleyway carrying a brown, paper grocery bag. I tried to duck back into the shadows, but it was a mistake. She turned, took one look at my battered face, dropped her bag, and screamed. Grimacing I read the name printed on the side of her bag: Flowers Grocery. I groaned. My luck couldn't have been worse if Poison Ivy, Bane, Harley, and Joker had decided to take a couple's retreat to Jump City and chose that exact moment to stroll down this street. Starfire was in Flowers Grocery, and a few moments later, she was standing right beside me.

The moment she saw my face she froze.

"You!"

She darted to my side just as a police cruiser rolled up. I'm not sure whether he'd heard the old lady's screams or he was part of the conspiracy to ruin what remained of my piss-poor plan.

"Dick Grayson, are you all right?" asked the officer, getting out of his car and rushing over. Starfire blinked, and I groaned. He'd just given her my name! I glared at him. Starfire touched my face gently, drawing my attention. I closed my eyes and savored her surprisingly cool touch against my skin. She smiled reassuringly, reminding me that she thought I was an 'ordinary' human. Well there was no help for it. My grave was dug and now I just had to curl up and die in it.

"You've got to go after them. They're getting away…" I feigned weakness. The officer lifted his shoulder to speak into the radio that 'Dick Grayson' had been found. _That's right, just keep making it worse._

"You are Dick Grayson?" said Starfire softly. _Yes Star I am, but you were never supposed to know that. _She knew who I was. I'd forgotten she'd been reading the tabloids. According to the media, Dick Grayson was a well-known playboy. Bruce played up the image by surrounding me with the daughters of his wealthy business associates whenever I showed my face in Gotham. It wasn't a game I liked to play, but over the years I'd gotten good at playing it. At least this time I didn't have to pretend to be sincere when I summoned my most charming smile. Star's lashes fluttered.

"I told you I'd see you around."

I think I hit my head harder than I thought, because those definitely weren't the words I'd been planning to say. Sure I wanted to say something suave, but i'd just confirmed the name and face to put with that stupid card. I'd all but admitted that I was the one that sent it, and now she knew exactly who I was. In fact, she was closer to knowing the real me than anyone else had ever been. If Bruce knew how close, he'd…I'm not even sure what he'd do, but years of watching him interrogate and punish the thugs of Gotham I had a pretty good idea that I didn't want to find out.

"Mr. Grayson," interrupted the cop, glancing between us. "How did you end up here? We just had a report that you'd been abducted from Cadmus."

"I was, officer," I said, not bothering to drag my eyes from Star's face. Odd how confident I felt in her presence without the mask between us. "I went to Cadmus to investigate a break in this morning. Professor Chang was just showing me his latest research when we were attacked. Some of the burglars must have stayed behind."

"But that doesn't explain—"

"Professor Chang's research has been focusing on the possible applications of xenothium in teleportation. The thief must have taken me as insurance for a safe getaway and dumped me here before he disappeared. It's hard to say. I was knocked out by the gas..." I infused my voice with the right blend of bitterness and anger. The story was riddled with holes, but no cop was going to challenge _me_ over it.

"Sir, you should probably come with me," the officer tried again.

"Actually, I'd prefer to get cleaned up before you drag me in for questioning. I'll be at the 4th Street Penthouse in fifteen minutes. You can get my statement there."

"Will all due respect, Mr. Grayson, you've just been attacked. You just told me the person that did it is capable of teleportation. You shouldn't go unprotected."

"If I may offer my assistance?" said Starfire. Not waiting for the officer's answer, she helped pull me to my feet, and taking advantage of the opportunity I exaggerated the pain in my ankle as an added excuse to lean against her. I slipped my arm over her shoulder while she put hers around my waist.

"I can take him, Sir. It would be no trouble." Starfire rose into the air. "You will point me in the direction of your home?" I grinned.

Bruce kept a penthouse in Jump for the rare occasions when he traveled to visit this branch of Wayne Enterprises. I needed to get a message to him fast. I'm sure he was swimming in reports about what was happening, and so far he'd been showing surprising restraint by not contacting me to demand an explanation. Fortunately the penthouse had a balcony where Starfire could touch down. None of the servants were there. I was making this plan up as I went and hadn't thought I'd be needing the place.

"This is where you live?" Starfire asked, releasing me to take a better look at the great room. A large L-shaped white couch with black, satin throw pillows took up the center of the room. A single white orchid stood in a tall glass vase on the coffee table.

"Not really. I don't spend much time here in Jump." I gestured at the couch, inviting her inside while I jerked my head toward the hallway to say that I would need a moment to clean up. She nodded, fully engrossed in the lavishness surrounding her. I smiled to myself. The T-tower was state-of-the-art, but it lacked the sophistication of this place. Bruce spared no expenses on his furnishings. My last glimpse of her before I took myself off to the shower was of her bending to smell the white orchid on the table, a long tendril of hair spilling over one shoulder.

I showered as quickly as I could, dressed and returned to the great room in less than fifteen minutes. Starfire was studying one of the large black and white photographs that hung over the elaborate steel fireplace. Suddenly, I felt nervous. What did I say to her?

"Can I get you anything?"

"You are very wealthy, yes?" she asked. I nodded, sensing that there was more to the question. For all her innocence, she was extremely sharp. "You say you do not spend much time in Jump City and yet I have seen you twice in one week." That was not a question, and I felt my gut clench with anticipation.

"Why did you send me the flowers, Mr. Grayson?"

"My friends call me, Dick," I said automatically. She smiled. Before I could stop myself I ran a hand through my still-damp hair. I felt the cowlicks stand up as I did and hastily smoothed them back down into my face. "I thought you would like them."

I knew Starfire well enough to know that that nonanswer would not tide her over. She canted her head and placed her hands her hips. Her eyes narrowed in thought and she took a slow step toward me, one leg crossing in front of the other. She looked different, older somehow and I felt my breath catch in my throat as I drank her in.

"Raven tells me that the note you sent implies that you are the 'secret admirer.' You wish to pursue a relationship with me?" And there it was, the question I'd been waiting for her to ask since the day she'd crash-landed on Earth. But she was asking the wrong me. What could I say? _Of course I want to be with you Star, you're my best friend and the girl of my dreams all wrapped up in one. I can't stop thinking about that kiss you gave me that day in the street, and you can say all you want that it was just a language transference for you but it was still a kiss for me and I haven't been the same since..._ Those were words Dick Grayson could never say, and Robin wasn't allowed to feel that way about a member of his team. Gah, this was so screwed up! I wanted to tell her everything, sit her down on the couch and tell her who I was, what she meant to me, and why I'd been forced to lie. She would understand, she would keep my secret...

The phone rang. I didn't have to pick up to know who was on the other end of the line.

_What, was he a mind-reader now? _

"Excuse me, I need to take this." Stiffly, I walked to the receiver mounted to the wall and pressed talk. "Grayson."

"_What the hell is going on, Dick?_" growled an all-too familiar voice in my ear. _Yep, Bruce was pissed. _

"It's all right, I'm fine," I said quickly.

"In the past two hours I've had reports that our xenothium research has been stolen, Robin was nearly killed in an explosion, Dick Grayson has been kidnapped, and now Starfire is walking around in my penthouse. What are you up to?" He didn't yell. Bruce never yelled. But his words dripped menace, and even knowing that the entire distance between Gotham and Jump was between us, I shivered.

"I know, it's been quite a day," I said with a false laugh to put Starfire at ease. "Really Bruce, I'm fine, you don't have to worry."

"You have one hour to get her out of there and give me a good reason why I shouldn't come there and finding answers myself." He hung up the phone with an authoritative _click_. I rolled my eyes. Classic Bruce. He couldn't stand not knowing what was going on.

"You should probably go," I sighed, turning back to Starfire. "My security team is on the way. I'm sure the rest of the Titans will be wondering where you are." She hesitated, but I turned my back and walked away before she could ask any more questions. _I'm sorry, Star, but it's better this way_. She didn't belong in this world. Behind me I heard the soft _whoosh_ as she took to the sky.


	5. Chapter 5

It was late when I finally returned to the Tower. It took forever to shake the two officers who had come to get my statement on my 'abduction,' and once they were gone Bruce really laid into me, reminding me that in exchange for his funding of the Teen Titans I had sworn never to reveal to them who I really was. That last point touched a nerve and we'd had it out…bitterly…for over an hour. We both said things we shouldn't have, and as much as I wanted to take some of those things back it would be a cold day in hell before I called up Bruce to apologize. Our relationship wasn't programmed that way.

On the way back to the tower I had to stop and retrieve the stolen suit from the dumpster where I'd left it. Now it was hanging in the back of my closet, hidden among my civilian clothes.

I scrubbed my hands over my face. What a day. All I wanted to do was crawl into bed and sleep until this whole mess was over. I cast a longing look over my shoulder at the narrow bed and sighed. Something else was bothering me, and I wouldn't get any sleep until I figured out what to do. God, I'd come so close to telling Starfire the truth. She'd offered _more,_ and I hadn't said a word. I couldn't ask her about it now. Robin couldn't know about the things she said to Dick. It was all so confusing it was starting to make my head ache. I heaved a deep sigh.

My laptop was sitting near my elbow. I stared at it, debating. With a soft groan, I pried it open and pulled up my homepage. A few clicks later a chat window opened. _God I really was the Boy Blunder if I needed relationship advice from _him.

I waited a few moments for the connection to go through before a familiar face filled my screen. He smiled with genuine warmth.

"Hello Dick, what a pleasant surprise."

"Hi Clark," I mumbled. He wasn't wearing his glasses and his blue eyes scanned my face as if his x-ray vision was powerful enough to work through cyberspace—for all I knew maybe it could. Clark straightened in his chair, lines of concern wrinkling his forehead.

"Is everything all right? You look terrible."

"It's been a rough day," I agreed, "but nothing I can't handle. Actually, I need your advice." _God this was harder than I'd expected._ Clark leaned closer to the screen, obviously intrigued. I didn't call him often. In fact I don't think I'd ever called him. The Bat Family preferred to keep everything close to home, but right now he was the only person I knew who might understand what I was going through and wouldn't bite my head off trying to give me advice about what I should do.

"Yes…?" he prompted.

"I sent Starfire flowers," I blurted out. He blinked—just blinked—like it was no big deal, like I hadn't just told him something I couldn't even admit to my closest friends. One bushy brow rose.

"Did she like them…?" he asked slowly, clearly confused over the significance of what I was trying to tell him. I rolled my eyes.

"She thinks they came from _Dick Grayson._" At last I saw that super brain click into gear. His mouth opened and closed silently for a moment, and then the corners of his lips began to twitch. I wished I had laser vision so I could sear that smirk right off his face. He raised a hand and rubbed his forefinger across his upper lip, clearly hiding a grin at my expense. Realizing that I was not in the mood to be mocked, he became serious once more.

"Why didn't you tell them they came from you?" he asked finally. I let my head fall back with another groan of frustration.

"You know why! You know his rules. 'No one can know the truth. No one. Not ever.'"

The smile was completely gone now, replaced with a look of sympathy that was somehow just as bad.

"She's going to find out sooner or later, Dick. It will be better if she finds out from you."

"You don't get it Clark, she likes _Dick_!"

The Man of Steel actually threw back his head and laughed. My face was burning, but even I had to crack a smile at that one before I went on, "Ever since I sent her those flowers she's been more interested in Dick Grayson than Robin. After today she knows exactly who Dick Grayson is, so I can't tell her that the flowers came from me without her finding out that Robin and Dick are the same person."

"So what you're saying is you think she prefers who you really are to your alter ego?"

"_Robin_ is who I really am!" I insisted hotly. Clark pinched the bridge of his nose.

"Is it really?"

"Well, yea," I replied, though I was less certain this time. _Right?_ Clark heaved a sigh and looked at some place off-screen shaking his head.

"Let me guess: because of Bruce's rules you've avoided starting a relationship with her as Robin, correct?" I nodded. "And because you can't help how you feel about her you took a chance and sent her flowers as Dick?" another nod. "She believes that she has no future with Robin, yet you've revealed that you care for her as Dick, and you wonder why she's turning from you to your other half."

"She can't know," I repeated sadly. I knew in the end what that really meant. Clark frowned, guessing the direction my thoughts had taken. A dark storm cloud was brewing in his blue eyes.

"Let me tell you something. Every day I sit across the desk from the woman I love and watch her pine for someone that's not me. Every time she meets me as Superman I have to break her heart and tell her that we can never be more than friends. She knows I love her, hell she knows Clark loves her, but she doesn't know that I _am_ Clark, and until she figures out which of us is real, I can't know that she loves _me_ for the right reasons. Does Starfire care for Robin?"

"Yes," I mumbled.

"Then you're already farther along than I am."

"But she prefers Dick Grayson."

"No she doesn't." He shook his head. "She's flattered by Dick Grayson because he's giving her the attention that Robin won't. Before you can expect her to make the right choice you have to decide which of you she should choose. What do you think Clark's chances are if Superman tells Lois that the sound of her heart beating is the most beautiful sound in the world?"_ Probably zilch._ He nodded in silent agreement.

"From the sounds of it, your problem isn't with Starfire at all." _Huh?_ "You're so worried about what Bruce will say that you can't even be happy that you've found someone you care about enough to risk your secret and his to keep."

"Then what do I do?"

"I can't answer that, Dick. Only you can know what the right path for you is. You're young. Perhaps Starfire isn't the one for you, at all. You might tell her the truth and then a week from now part ways and all of this will have been for nothing." Something inside me violently rejected that idea. "Or you might keep your secrets until the day you die only to figure out that she's been the one you've been waiting for all along to share them with. Only you can know." I let that sink in. A yawn overtook me and I stretched. Clark smiled.

"Sleep on it. Maybe the answer will come to you in the morning."

"Right…" I said, not believing it for a minute. "Oh and hey Clark, thanks. Who'd have thought the Man of Steel was such a softie?" He laughed.

"Go to bed, Dick."

I hit ESC on my keyboard and the chat window disappeared. There was something satisfying about poking fun at the Man of Steel—from a safe distance anyway. I felt better. Even though I still didn't know what to do, it was good to know that someone understood. And maybe he was right. Maybe I was worrying too much about what Bruce felt than what I would feel if I let her get away.


	6. Chapter 6

"Dude, where were you yesterday? We knocked on your door all night but you never came out," Beast Boy complained the minute I walked into the kitchen the next morning for breakfast. I shot him a look, daring him keep talking. Cyborg waved his spatula dismissively with his back to us.

"Come on BB, you know how he gets whenever Slade comes to town. You, me, Starfire, and Raven could have kicked down the door and done a Conga line around his room naked and he still wouldn't have noticed."

I spat out my coffee all over the counter. Cyborg and Beast Boy grinned and slapped each other a high five. I think the whole tower takes a perverse pleasure in trying to throw me off my game. I'm not sure where they got the idea that I'm some uptight stick-in-the-mud, but somewhere I knew they were keeping score of how often they could trip me up. Cyborg was probably in the lead. While Beast Boy tried the hardest, it was Cy who always delivered the unexpected blows to my ego that managed to knock me off my feet. Raven could be counted on for the occasional one-line zinger, but usually she didn't care enough to try, and I was so used to the strange things Starfire said by now that not many things she did surprised me anymore.

"Dude, he's totally thinking about it! Look at him!" Beast Boy crowed. My face was red, and I knew it, but it was more from anger than embarrassment.

"Not cool, Beast Boy." I fixed him with the look Bruce always gave me when I did something he didn't like. Beast Boy withered. _Gee, I hope I don't do that_.

"Relax man," said Cyborg. "The girls are like sisters to us. No one's really thinking about seeing them naked." That was a lie and all three of us knew it.

"End. Of. Discussion," I ground out through clenched teeth. Cyborg shrugged and went back to frying bacon on the stove. Beast Boy picked up his spoon and returned to his bowl of cereal in silence. The air was tense between us when Raven glided into the kitchen a few minutes later. At the sight of her, Beast Boy gave a slight 'eep' and slid to the farthest seat from the one she usually sat in. I raised a brow. _Okay, maybe she did send him through a portal to Hell. _

"Where were you, yesterday?" Raven asked quietly as she blew steam from her mug of herbal tea. She floated over to the stool beside mine and I glanced at her warily.

"I was trying to locate Slade," I lied. Her eyes narrowed.

"You weren't in the tower. When Beast Boy couldn't get you to come out I did a scan and couldn't sense your aura anywhere." _Geeze, I can't even finish breakfast before my day takes a dive._

"I left to follow up on some leads." I held her gaze, daring her to push. Raven wasn't one I could intimidate with the Bat Glare. Truthfully, she's got a pretty mean Raven Glare of her own. It would almost be worth pitting her up against Bruce to see who would blink first. She knew I was lying. Those flippin' empath powers of hers were probably reading all sorts of signals I was projecting, but she just pressed her lips together with a faint, 'mhm,' and sipped her tea. Our eyes remained locked as I took a gulp of my coffee.

"Dude, did you hear about the break in at Cadmus? According to the news someone abducted Dick Grayson!" I focused all my attention on not flinching at the sound of my own name. The whole dual identity thing is ten times harder than anyone who doesn't have one thinks. Trust me, it's hard not to cringe when you have to listen to people comment on the things you did in your 'other life' and not give yourself away. I'd fallen out of practice around the Titans by keeping Dick Grayson away from Jump. I'd have to be especially on my guard now until I could shift him out of the picture again.

"It was Slade," I said calmly. _And let the lies roll…_

"Slade?" Beast Boy repeated, as if he couldn't imagine why Slade would be behind it. My jaw flexed with impatience that it hadn't been his first thought. Beast Boy's smart—he really is. I think when he changes sometimes his brain just takes a while to shift from the capacity of a goldfish back into a human's.

"Professor Chang is the leading specialist in teleportation technology. Slade always manages to slip through our fingers even when we have him cornered. He's probably already got the professor working for him under the table." _Come to think of it…_

"Teleportation!" Beast Boy whined. "That means he could be anywhere!" I shook my head.

"Not anywhere. According to what Chang has published, he's only managed to work out line-of-sight teleportation. Not that that's not still a huge advantage," I growled.

"Why would Slade kidnap Grayson?" asked Cyborg, setting a plate of bacon and eggs in front of me. I shrugged.

"Grayson's a high profile target. It sends a message when someone as untouchable as a Wayne gets kidnapped. Slade's all about proving how untouchable he is. But he doesn't deal in ransoms. That's probably why he let the guy go." _Wow, that almost sounded plausible…_ I wasn't sure if I should be more impressed at my ability to cover my tracks or disappointed that my friends couldn't smell the load of crap I was feeding them.

"After you finish eating, meet me in the gym," I ordered, hunching over my food to eat. No one said anything else.

Ten minutes later the four of us were assembled in the gym.

"Where's Starfire?" I asked, glancing toward the door. She was normally an early riser, and if I hadn't been so busy deflecting questions from the others I would have noticed how odd it was that she wasn't around. Cyborg and Beast Boy shrugged. Raven stood conspicuously quiet. When I stared at her, her gaze cooled.

"I'm not her keeper, Robin. The only thing I can tell you is that she's not in the tower." That threw me. Had she gone for a morning flight? She did that sometimes. Sunlight recharged her powers and she'd told me once that flying at dawn did nearly as much for her as a full night's sleep for the rest of us. I frowned.

"Fine, we'll just run drills without her." Starfire comes from a warrior culture. If I'm honest with myself, she's probably had the most combat experience out of all of us and wouldn't suffer from skipping a morning of drills. Still, I didn't like that she'd gone out without telling anyone.

I gave them their exercises. Today they were supposed to be focusing on their weaknesses. For instance, Cyborg was doing speed, agility, and endurance training. While he claimed that his robotics could only perform to their maximum limits and no further, I noticed that he used it as a crutch in combat to fall behind and then spent the rest of the day kicking himself for not keeping up with those of us who were smaller and lighter. Raven and I were working on hand-to-hand combat. She relied entirely too much on her powers to save her in a fight. It was difficult to find the right exercises for Beast Boy. Depending on what form he chose he could find ways to make whatever drill I gave him easier or harder on himself. In the end I made him weightlift. Every beast has muscles and no matter what form he picked he could always add to its strength.

By midmorning I had worked up a good sweat. Raven had improved her roundhouse kicks—I think because she was picturing taking me out with one of them. Cyborg and Beast Boy were playing a game of one-on-one basketball, though I use that term loosely since neither of them were playing by any basketball rules I'd ever heard. Starfire still wasn't back.

"Call her," Raven panted, stepping back to get a gulp of water from her purple bottle. I made a face but reached for my communicator. Late to training I could forgive, but going completely AWOL was a whole different story.

She answered almost immediately. Relief shot through me at the sight of her face. She blushed when she saw who it was and bit her lip, looking off at something I couldn't see. I frowned.

"Starfire, where are you? You're missing training." For once, it wasn't hard to sound stern with her.

"My apologies Robin. I am…" she hesitated, and I could see from the flash of uncertainty in her green eyes that she was thinking about lying to me. My fingers clenched around the communicator.

"Where are you?" I repeated through clenched teeth.

Her face fell and she hung her head.

"I am at the 4th Street Hotel. I am waiting for the 'audience' with D—Richard Grayson."

I nearly dropped the communicator in shock. _She was at the penthouse?! Did Bruce know she was there? _That was stupid—of course he knew she was there. I probably had ten angry messages waiting for me on my answering machine warning me to clear her out of the lobby or else he'd come do it himself. How long had she been there? What was she doing?

"Why?"

"It is a private matter." So basically, _butt out._

Except it wasn't a private matter. She was there trying to talk to _me_, and I was _here_ running training drills with the Titans. Gah, how did Clark keep from going insane? One week of this and I was ready to swan dive off the tower.

"Why didn't you tell someone you were going out?" I knew that was a mistake the moment the words were out of my mouth. One second she was watching me guiltily and the next her eyes flashed with green fire.

"Because I am not the infant that requires being sat upon, Robin." She could be scary when she was angry. Her nose wrinkled, and I swear the ends of her hair lit up like flames.

"Good, because I'm not here to babysit you." Uh oh. This could get ugly fast. Starfire and I didn't fight often—usually she was the one I turned to when the others were driving me insane—but when we did, boy were there fireworks. Her head reared back and I saw a flash of bared teeth behind suspiciously glossy lips. _Was she wearing makeup?_

"Get back to the tower, Star. We'll talk about this later."

"I will not be returning now. I received the 'invitation' to meet with Mr. Grayson this morning and I will not be doing the 'standing up' of him just because you insist on being the _chlorbagork!" _

She hung up on me.

In front of the entire team she hung up on me!

I stared down at the now blank communicator screen in shock. Blood pounded in my temples.

"Yo Rob, take a deep breath man," said Cyborg. He sounded uneasy, like he thought I was about to do something reckless and stupid.

"I'll be back," I snarled and ran for the door.

By the time I got back to my room I was seeing red. How dare Starfire defy me like that. I wasn't being unreasonable. She'd gone off alone without letting anyone know where she was going, missed training, and had the gall to be pissy with me when I was only calling to check up on her? I glanced at my answering machine and saw that indeed there were seven missed calls all from the Bat Cave. And she'd gotten me in trouble with Bruce again!

I tore off my sweaty uniform and stomped to the closet for a fresh one. Just the thought of going to 4th Street sent my temperature rising. Now I'd have to face down half a dozen of my own servants dressed as _Robin_ and pray that none of them recognized me, all because she'd—wait. _What invitation?_ I froze. She'd said she'd received an invitation to meet with him. From whom? The blood drained from my face. _Bruce._ Well now what did I do? If Bruce had invited her then did I show up as Dick or Robin? She probably knew Robin was coming for her, but she expected to meet Dick. I ran a hand through my hair. _Up or down?_ There wasn't time to wash the gel out of it, but how was Dick supposed to sneak out of the tower when I was pretty sure the rest of the Titans would be lurking in the hallway to see what I planned on doing. I glared at my closet.

A long black sleeve caught my eye.

Well, that was one way to handle it.


	7. Chapter 7

I was halfway across the city when I finally turned on my earpiece linking me to the Bat Cave.

"I thought you said you had things under control, Dick," Bruce growled immediately.

I was so shocked, I miscalculated my next leap and slammed into the edge of the building I was trying to land on. It knocked the wind out of me, and I hung there for a moment before I pulled myself over the ledge.

"You've got to be kidding me!" I shouted, startling some nearby pigeons. "I _had _everything under control until you invited her over for tea with Dick Grayson."

Silence.

One of many annoying things about Bruce is that he manages to say a whole lot without saying a word. This time I could practically see him sitting in his high-backed chair giving me a look that said, '_I can't believe you've lasted this long on your own without getting yourself killed.' _

"I will be taking the damages out of your allowance." Click.

I screwed up my face and rolled my eyes. _Whatever, Bruce._ I turned my attention to the 4th Street Hotel. I could see it between two skyscrapers. Anxiety tingled in my belly. There were so many things wrong with this situation.

I glanced down at myself. Professor Chang's suit fit like a second skin. There was a red X emblazoned across the chest, presumably standing for the xenothium that powered it, and similar X's on the gloves. In order not to be recognized the moment I blipped into the room, I'd rummaged around in my closet until I pulled out the skeleton mask I'd worn last Halloween. It wasn't the best disguise, but it was the best I could do on such short notice. As an added precaution I grabbed one of my spare capes, a black one. If this went south I had the feeling I might need a fireguard between me and some very hot starbolts.

I made my next jump and suddenly Bruce's last words made a whole lot more sense. All of the windows on the west side of the penthouse had been shattered, and there were green jets of light shooting through the roof.

The scene that greeted me when I fazed into the room wasn't the one I expected, but I probably should have. Starfire was snarling, eyes aglow and hands encased in green, facing off against Slade. Neither noticed my abrupt arrival, and as I watched, Slade charged her. Starfire leveled a roundhouse kick that caught him square in the chest, but instead of soaring through the sky the way he should have, he held onto her leg as she completed the turn, and once his feet found solid ground again, swung her over his head and slammed her into the floor. The large, square tiles cracked. I flinched. Starfire gasped with pain. I needed to distract Slade, give Star time to catch her breath.

"Well this looks like fun," I said loudly. Both heads whipped around to stare at me where I was standing just inside the broken windows. Behind the mask I surveyed the room. There were holes burned through the walls, the leather couch was broken and one half was overturned. The pictures that had hung on the wall were ripped, and one was completely demolished as though it had been used to smash over someone's head.

Slade's eyes slid up my suit and narrowed. Adrenaline coursed through me. To provoke him, I put a hand behind my head and preened.

"Like what you see, big fella?" I called. _Uh…huh? _I'm not sure where that came from, but it did the trick like nothing I've ever seen. Roaring, he ran at me with near super-human speed. I crouched, braced for his attack, and in the instant before he met me I reminded myself that I was not Robin and so far as he knew we didn't have a history.

He hit me like a bull, and rather than engage the way I was itching to, we rolled backwards over the broken glass and out onto the balcony. His fist seized my throat.

"You have taken something of mine."

I brought my feet up to his chest and pushed him back a few paces.

"Be a good boy and I just might give it back," I quipped. _God, this was weird!_

_Wham_! A starbolt slammed into my shoulder. Luckily, my cape took the worst of it, but it still burned. Fortunately Slade had been knocked back by one too. We spun to face Starfire, who was looking angrier than I've ever seen her. I rubbed my shoulder. That hadn't been one of the low-watt starbolts that she threw during training. She was aiming to leave marks. Her hands charged for another strike, and I glanced over at Slade.

"I don't think she likes us much."

He leveled a look at me that basically said, '_Screw off and die,_' before he squared off to avoid the next volley of starbolts headed our way. Dodging the barrage of shots, I darted over to him, realizing that I finally had an opening to infiltrate his ranks. My hand closed around his wrist.

"Hang on, big fella'," I drawled, tapping my belt and teleporting us out of there. I made two more jumps before I deemed us safely out of Starfire's path. The moment we stopped, Slade seized my wrist and flipped me over his head. I spun in mid-air and managed to land on my feet, skidding to a halt. To my surprise, he didn't attack. Instead he stood coolly on the other side of the roof where we had landed. It wasn't my ideal choice, out in the open where anyone could see us, but it left both of us vulnerable.

"Who are you?" he asked finally. There was cool amusement in his deep voice that made my skin crawl, but beneath the mask I was elated. Finally! This was my chance to find out what he was really up to.

"You can call me Red X," I invented on the spot. Not a particularly flashy name, but it worked in a pinch. He seemed to agree because he regarded me with bland impatience.

"And what are you doing with my suit, _Red X?_"

"I thought you'd like my little audition. Your goons failed to get into Cadmus and steal this baby, but I did it, and all by my lonesome. You could use a man like me on your team." I couldn't see his face through his mask, but I knew he was considering me. The cocky attitude was keeping him on edge, but he if he wasn't outright attacking me that meant he was interested in what I had to say.

"You think it's that easy. You think you can join me just because you pulled off one stunt and I will share all my secrets with you?" I folded my arms and shrugged.

"Who said anything about secrets? You're the biggest bad in town. Even the Titans can't catch you. I'd say it's much more fun to play for the winning team than go out with the losers."

"A trial, then. You took advantage of Cadmus while their defenses were breached, and though you successfully retrieved the suit, you were sloppy. That suit is powered by xenothium. It's rare, and if you want to keep using it you're going to need more of it." _Ooh. Clever Slade. _I shrugged again. With a full-face mask I was limited in my expressions

"You want me to go back and do it again? No problem."

"After your antics, the lab has moved their stores of xenothium to a secured vault within the research and development facility at Wayne Enterprises." _Crap._

"You want me to break into a company that specializes in cutting-edge security technology?" _I'm in enough hot water with Bruce as it is, don't make me steal from him too. _Slade lifted his chin, and beneath the two-toned mask I knew he was sneering.

"Just as I thought. You are not up to the task…or of joining my team."

"I didn't say that," I said quickly, crossing my arms over my chest. "I just wanted to iron out the details. You want a hot supply of xenothium fresh out of the Wayne Enterprises oven? I'm your delivery boy. Just tell me when and where, and you've got it."

"Your arrogance is nauseating," he said, turning his back. "When you have the element, I will be in touch."


	8. Chapter 8

**Author's note:**This chapter takes place after the events in the episode, Masks. While there are some obvious differences between what's going on in my story vs. what happened in that episode, I'd like to think it's clear enough without me rewriting the episode for you. And no, I don't own any of the dialogue taken from that episode either.

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I won't bore you with the details. I think the whole world knows just how badly my plan went down. The short version is that the Titans answered the distress call when I tripped the alarms going after the xenothium. They followed me into a subway station and while I was trying to get away, Beast Boy fell onto the tracks and was nearly crushed by an oncoming train. I was the only one close enough to reach him in time. I want to take down Slade at all costs, but I'm not going to sacrifice my friends to do it. It didn't take them long to figure out who was beneath the mask after that. Worse, Slade figured it out too. He'd known me the moment I showed up at the penthouse, which made all of my bantering even more cringe-inducing. But that wasn't the worst part. No, the worst part came later while I was beating myself up in my room.

"Robin?"

I knew she'd come eventually. The others all had their turn, and I didn't think there was anything that could make me feel worse. Then Starfire delivered the killing blow: "Whoever Slade is, you and he are similar. Slade did not trust you, and you did not trust us." It was bad enough seeing bits of Bruce in myself, but _Slade_? Maybe I should have told the others what I was planning, but I never thought things would go so far. And it wasn't even like I'd made up Red X to fool Slade in the first place. Star'd really let me have it if she knew that the only reason I created the Red X persona was to keep her from figuring out the connection between the other two.

She paused when she reached the door.

"When I received the message from Dick Grayson I thought you wished to tell me the truth. Did you truly think I would not know you?"

My heart stopped. I whipped around to stare at her. All of Bruce's training went out the window and I gaped at her. She looked sadly over her shoulder.

"You knew…?" I gasped. She lowered her lashes with a mixture of dismay and hurt.

"You thought that putting on the glasses and removing the product from your hair would fool me?"

_It works for Clark._ I could only stare, confused and terrified by what she was telling me. She searched my face, seeing the fear there and hung her head with a sigh.

"I would recognize you anywhere, Robin."

A sudden lump in my throat made it very difficult to breathe. She'd known all along. I'd been making a fool of myself, and she'd know the truth. _But the flowers…?_

"How…?" I croaked. A flash of impatience lit up her eyes.

"I recognized your scent the moment you passed me in the store. You took great pains not to be recognizable as Robin. You were following me. Why?"

"I…" What did I say? _I was following you to make sure you were alright. I can't stand the thought that something might happen to you because you don't know what people are capable of. I don't want you to see the ugly side of mankind. I love rediscovering the world through your eyes. I love how you can be amazed by a can of green beans and find wonder in the variety of apple skins. You remind me of everything that is unique and beautiful in this world…_

"Why did you make such a big deal out of the flowers if you knew who they were from?" I chose a safer route. She'd been genuinely confused by the card, and I'd honestly believed she thought I was someone else in the store. She put her hand on her hip.

"The card was signed by the 'anonymous.' You did not wish for the others to know it was from you. I wanted you to know how greatly I appreciated the gesture. When you arrived at the store as Dick Grayson, I thought you wished for my assistance in keeping your identity secret, yet you sent me away when we might have spoken and cleared the air of this confusion." The lump in my throat threatened to choke me. She knew me so well. How could I not have realized?

"Why did you not trust me?" Her voice wobbled, and my legs turned to water. _Oh no, not tears, Star._

"It's not just my secret, Star," I said softly. "There are others whose lives depend on no one ever finding out that Robin and Dick Grayson are the same person. If anyone ever found out that you know who I really am they would hurt you to get to me."

She gave a harsh bark of laughter and tossed her hair over her shoulder in a wave of crimson.

"What could your enemies do to me that has not already been done?" she said with a bitterness I'd never heard before. I sucked in a sharp breath.

Starfire never spoke of her life before the Titans. I had guesses, but I never asked. She'd been a prisoner when she crash-landed on Earth, and it didn't take the World's Greatest Detective to know that the circumstances leading up to our first meeting could not have been pleasant.

"Star…?" I said tentatively. She shot me a look full of fury.

"No! You withheld your secrets; you do not deserve to know mine."

"I have enemies, Star. If they ever got their hands on you—"

"I would never betray you, Robin! Before you, I never knew what it was to have a friend. You taught me that being nice is not the same as being weak. I have known torture at the hands of the vilest creatures of the universe, and I swear to you I will go willingly to the Citadel before I ever reveal anything about you to those who wish to harm you."

I could only stare at the girl who was the embodiment of happiness and light. _Torture_? The thought that anyone could harm her brought about a wave of such rage and helplessness that I trembled with it. For the first time I saw the shadows she worked so hard to hide. I never wanted to see sorrow on that face. At that moment I would have hunted down whoever had put those shadows in her eyes and destroyed them until not even their memories remained to haunt her.

"I don't want you to ever have to make that choice."

"You think I cannot protect myself? You are a human, with human limitations. I am 'the house of power' compared to you. If you can face such dangers then what peril is there for me? All of your reasons are mere excuses to keep anyone from getting close. I understand that now. You have no desire for anything _more._" She lifted her chin and gave me a firm nod, sealing a promise I couldn't let her make.

"No!" I dove across the space between us and grabbed her hands. "You're wrong Starfire. I want _more_ so bad it hurts, but I know I'll only mess this up and lose the one person who believes in me when no one else does. After Br—Gotham, I thought the world was nothing but heroes, villains, and the civilians we protect. Then you came, and you reminded me that there is beauty in the world worth fighting for."

"You could never lose my friendship," she said softly. And as nice as that was to hear it wasn't enough. It never had been.

"I don't want your friendship, Star," I said quietly. Her back was pressed against my door and I held her wrists in my hands. I looked into her face, tracing the exotic slant of her gorgeous eyes, the delicate line of her nose, and the full, glossy curves of her lips. I made a decision.

Before she could stop me, my hand shot out and caught the back of her neck, drawing her face toward mine. Her lips were soft and tasted like strawberry. Our noses bumped, and her hands came up to press against my chest. In that moment every fantasy I'd ever had crumbled to dust. Nothing would ever compare to the feel of her mouth moving with mine. My free hand rose with a mind of its own to cup her waist and pull her closer. She could blast me into oblivion—I deserved it—but at least I would die with this memory to carry with me through eternity.

Her fingers clenched in the fabric of my shirt and yanked me closer. _God, she's amazing!_ I closed the lingering distance between us so that our chests were pressed together and she had my leg trapped between hers. Fire ignited inside me, a blaze I hoped would never go out. At last there were no more secrets between us, no alter egos, no stupid rules that had no purpose other than to make us both miserable. The dam had burst and I was free! My last coherent thought before I completely gave myself over to the wonder that was Starfire was that I'd well and truly failed Bruce's test, but I'd rather have my fierce, fiery Tamaranean warrior over Bruce's impossible standards any day.


	9. Chapter 9

**A/N: **This chapter is pretty fluffy. I was considering ending the story with the last chapter, but realized I still had some loose ends to tie up. Plus I'm really enjoying Robin's floundering. Anyway, on with the next chapter.

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I couldn't keep the goofy grin off my face when I walked into the common room the next morning. I'm sure Cyborg and Beast Boy, who both gave me the cold shoulder when I entered, were more than a little confused. Ignoring them, I poured myself a cup of coffee and sat down on my stool to read through the morning paper. Thinking I wasn't paying attention, they had a silent conversation trying to figure out why I was in such a good mood.

Before I'd even read the first headline, Raven glided into the kitchen. Her violet eyes fastened on me and narrowed.

I don't like to admit it, but Raven intimidates me sometimes. She's almost as good as Bruce at hiding what she's thinking, and her little demonstration with Beast Boy the other day proved that she was more than willing to carry out her threats if she felt like it.

"Robin, can I speak with you?" Her voice was low and serious. I nodded and took a deep gulp of coffee to steel myself before I got up from my seat and followed her out into the hallway. Behind me, Beast Boy and Cyborg had another silent exchange.

The moment the doors closed behind us, Raven rounded on me.

"Why in the name of Azar, did Starfire come to my room last night and ask me about mating rituals on earth?" She was practically growling at me, but her face was glowing with embarrassment. My knees nearly went out from beneath me. From behind us the doors burst open and Cyborg and Beast Boy charged into the hall.

"Star was asking about _what_?" demanded Cyborg. My eyes rolled back into my head as I closed my eyes. Great, this had gotten out of hand fast. Then Raven's words sank in. _Mating rituals?! _

"Why did she want to know about that?" I asked, my voice coming out a little higher than usual. Raven glared at me.

"You tell me, Robin."

"We just kissed!" I protested loudly.

"Whoa man! You've been kissing on Starfire?" Cyborg frowned in disapproval. "After that stunt you pulled yesterday?" I scrubbed a hand over my face, annoyed.

"No, you don't understand. Starfire and I…nevermind. It's not what you think. Raven, what did she want to know?" All eyes turned to Raven, whose face burned brighter still. She lifted her hood to shroud her eyes in shadow.

"I told her if she wanted to know she'd have to ask you," she said with a lift of her chin. _In other words she'd chickened out and thrown me under the bus. Great_. Now it was only a matter of time before I'd have to answer some very embarrassing questions that I wasn't sure I even had answers for. For that matter, what were the mating rituals like on Tamaran? What if we weren't compatible? She looked mostly human but what if—_Whoa! Slow down, Dick_, I cautioned myself. Were we even officially dating? I mean, I assumed so, but we hadn't exactly talked about it. Talking hadn't been real high on our list of priorities last night. And what was Star thinking if she was already asking Raven about how humans mate? My heart rate picked up.

"What you and Starfire do is none of my business," said Raven. "I'd appreciate it if you kept it that way." Cheeks still flushed pink, she backed up and disappeared back into the kitchen. Beast Boy and Cyborg sprang apart to let her pass. They wore the same look of complete shock on their faces. _Was it really that hard to believe?_

"Dude! You and Starfire…?" gasped Beast Boy.

"Well," said Cyborg, stepping forward. "How was it?"

"I should probably go talk to Star," I mumbled, distracted. My head was reeling. Part of me was panicking while a tiny part of me was thrilled that she was even thinking about…what came after.

A few minutes later I found myself standing outside her door. My palms were sweating and my pulse was still racing. I didn't know what I was going to say. In my wildest dreams I never dreamed I'd be about to have this conversation with anyone, let alone Starfire. I shook my hands nervously before I knocked on her door.

"Um, Star, can I come in?"

There was the sound of movement through the door before she gave me permission to enter. I punched in the code and stepped inside. The first sight that greeted me was her large, round bed. The sheets were still rumpled from the night before, and just the sight of them turned my thoughts back to the reason I was standing there. An image of Starfire tangled in those sheets hit me like a sledgehammer and I squeezed my eyes shut and whirled away—only to come face to face with Starfire leaning over the edge of her bathtub in nothing but a white towel dragging a slender pink razor up the long line of her calf. My jaw dropped. I'm sure I looked ridiculous because Starfire's slender brows lifted in concern.

"Yes?"

"Gah, Starfire! Why didn't you say that you were…" I spluttered, covering my face with my hands, afraid of what I'd see next if I kept them open.

"My apologies, Robin, or do you prefer me to call you Dick?" There was a teasing note to her voice that did strange things to my brain, strange things I couldn't afford to let happen at that moment in time.

"Uh, Robin's fine. Listen, Star, about last night…" I took a deep breath. Why was it so hard to talk to her about this? "Raven said that after you left my room you stopped to talk to her about something." By now my face was as red as her hair, but I'd come too far to turn and bolt now. Her razor clattered to the floor as she gave a faint 'eep.'

"Oh! You spoke to Raven? And she sent you to talk to me? I see…"

"Starfire, we don't have to talk about this now. I mean, usually people our age date for a while—a long while—before they start talking about this kind of thing."

"Why?" she asked simply. I blinked.

"W-what do you mean, why?"

"Why do they wait so long?"

"Uh, because that's a big step on our planet. It requires a lot of faith and trust in the other person and the relationship." The moment the words were out of my mouth I knew I'd said the wrong thing. Her eyes flared with hurt and she lowered her leg to the floor, shaving cream still coating the outer side of her calf.

"You do not have that faith and trust in me?"

"No Star, I mean of course I do, just…we've only just started dating. We've been friends for so long that we don't know what it will be like when we're a couple. It's a big risk opening up to someone like that. What if things didn't work out?" She tilted her head to the side, clearly not on the same page with me.

"On my planet we are not afraid of sharing ourselves with our mates."

There was that word again. _Mates. Mating._

"We're not animals, Star," I said delicately. She exhaled heavily through her nose and looked at the floor, thinking. Finally, she smiled and nodded.

"Our worlds are very different, Robin. On my planet you would be my chosen. There would be no reason for me to withhold anything from you. I have already come to care for you more than I have ever thought possible. But I understand. There is much uncertainty on your world. You are not so honest with your emotions. You cannot be sure that what you are experiencing is real or that it will last. It is…romantic that you wait until you are sure. Romance is not something we have on my planet. I find that I like it." I let out the breath I hadn't even realized I'd been holding. She smiled.

"You were worried?"

"A day ago I was scared stiff that you were never going to talk to me again, and now I'm standing here talking to you about _this._ I'm having a hard time believing it's not a crazy dream." She giggled and bent to retrieve her razor.

"Perhaps I should punish you for trying to deceive me. However, I find I cannot stay mad at you when I remember the 'bantering' you did with Slade as Red X. I am certain Cyborg and Beast Boy would be much amused as well." A laugh bubbled up from inside me. _I really had called him big fella,' hadn't I?_

Abruptly, my smile faded. The rosy haze I'd been in since I walked through the door suddenly vanished, leaving a cold clarity in its wake. My heart stopped.

"What is it now?"

"What was Slade doing at the penthouse?" I gasped. _What the hell was wrong with me?_ I couldn't believe it had taken me so long to put the pieces together. Slade knew that Red X was Robin because he'd recognized me the moment Red X teleported onto the balcony, but he hadn't gone after Robin. He'd gone after Dick Grayson.

Suddenly I felt sick.

"Oh God!" I staggered, one hand clutching my chest. Starfire darted to my side to steady me.

"Robin!"

"He knows. Slade knows who I am!"


	10. Chapter 10

**A/N: **I really appreciate all of the positive responses to this story. Please keep reviewing. It encourages me to keep updating.

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Here's the funny thing about dual identities—or in my case now, triple identities—who can you turn to when one of them is in trouble? If I told Bruce that Slade knew who Robin really was there was nothing he could do that wouldn't confirm Slade's suspicions. I couldn't tell the Titans because then I'd have to explain everything to them, and as much as I believed they could handle the truth, Bruce's paranoia couldn't handle so many people knowing his secrets. Obviously there was Starfire, but apart from my name she didn't really know much about my life as Robin before the Titans. I'm not even sure she knew what the Bat Cave was. I needed help. For the first time I was willing to admit I was in way over my head and I needed another superhero to come bail me out. But not Batman—God, anyone but Batman. I'd never hear the end of it from him.

"Hey Clark?" I was back in my room again, alone. Starfire promised to do whatever she could to help, but when I told her that I needed to figure this out on my own she nodded and let me go. For some reason it surprised me that she didn't put up a fight. I'd half-expected her to insist that I needed to trust her or the team, but instead she just smiled at me and gave me a nod, as if she knew I would handle it and everything would be fine. _Wow._ I'm not sure anyone's had so much faith in me since…well, my parents. By the time I reached the door I was already feeling more in control again. Was this what having a girlfriend was going to be like?

Clark looked terrible. His tie hung loosely around his throat, and his collar was disheveled. There were bags under his eyes, and his broad shoulders sagged as if he carried the weight of the world. Only one thing affected the Man of Steel that way.

"Is Lois all right?" I asked immediately.

I've known Superman since I first started patrolling Gotham. When he found out that Bruce was dragging a kid into danger with him, Clark had shot out of the sky and hauled Batman up by his throat demanding to know what he was thinking. To this day I still don't think he understood why Bruce insisted on taking me with him. He wouldn't. Clark still has his parents. He didn't know what it felt like to know that their deaths were for no other reason than someone else's greed. Bruce's father had tried to reason with his gunman, offered him all the valuables he had on him, and it hadn't been enough. My parents died so that a mafia boss could prove a point to the owner of Haley's circus when he wouldn't accept a bribe. Clark sighed and stared off into the space beyond his laptop.

"She'll be fine. It's just a broken wrist but it could have been so much worse." I waited. With Clark there was always more. He wasn't like Bruce, who pretended he didn't have emotions. Clark Kent wore his heart on his sleeve, and he could always be counted on to blame himself when people around him got hurt—especially Lois.

"She was going undercover trying to expose a group of poachers that were targeting animals on the endangered species list and selling their pelts to the highest bidder. It was a multi-million dollar scheme. She found out that they had captured a panda cub and were planning to sell it to a zoo. She…well she's Lois. She confronted the men, and if I hadn't been close by…" He sighed and pressed the heel of his palms against his eyes as if he was trying to grind the memory out of his mind. I ran a hand over the back of my neck.

"You know, she may be a human but she's not as fragile as you think she is. Look at all the crazy trouble I've gotten myself into and I've survived. It's not in us to just sit by and do nothing, even when we do have your number on speed dial."

"I know," he said with another heavy sigh, as if to say, _I know, but I don't have to like it._ "Speaking of trouble, how's your situation with Starfire?" He wanted to change the subject. Nothing I or anyone else said was going to change his mind when it came to Lois and her safety. He'd have wrapped her in a bulletproof bubble if she'd let him, which of course we all knew she wouldn't.

"Well, things have gotten complicated…" I told him everything that had happened since the last time we'd talked. When I got to the part where I put on the Red-X costume he put his hand over his mouth again to hide his smile.

"You were having enough trouble with only two identities. What on earth made you think a third would make things any easier."

"I don't know _Kal_, what does _Clark_ think about being _Superman_ in his downtime?" I shot back. At that, his face split into a wide grin. I rolled my shoulders, preening. _Score one for Robin._

"Anyway, it was a total failure. Starfire knew it was me the whole time. And if that's not bad enough, Slade even figured out that it was me. Which is the reason I called. If Slade knows the truth, he could destroy everything. He'll go after Bruce, Babs, Alfred—anyone that's associated with Dick Grayson or Robin. I really screwed up this time, and…I need help." The words stuck in my throat a little bit.

For a second I thought I saw him flinch, and then to my surprise he just chuckled. I stared at him. Did he not hear what I just said? Slade knew Robin's secret identity. Slade! On what planet was that funny?

"What did Starfire say when she finally told you?" he asked—completely missing the point of the story. Annoyed that he couldn't focus on what was important, I gave him the words that would hit home the most.

"She asked me how I thought that wearing a pair of glasses and changing my hairstyle would be enough to keep her from recognizing me." I shot him a pointed look, and he threw back his head and laughed again. It was a little odd to be swapping stories and advice with him like this. Before, when I spoke with him it was as Robin, side-kick to Batman, and now he was treating me like Robin, Leader of the Teen Titans and Superman's equal.

"So…about Slade?" I prompted when he continued to smile off into la-la land. His blue eyes snapped back to my face. An unfathomable expression was lingering in his gaze that unnerved me a little bit. I stared back, trying to read it. Sympathy? Apology? Resignation?

"Are you certain Slade knows the truth? Could it be a coincidence that he was there? Perhaps he came to question Dick Grayson about the man who stole the Red-X costume."

"I don't know for sure, but Starfire received an invitation to meet with Dick Grayson at the penthouse. I didn't send it."

"You think Slade did? Why?"

"I don't know, Clark. If I knew what he was up to I wouldn't have to ask for your help!" I exploded in frustration. He merely lifted a brow, waiting for me to calm down. It was subtle, but it was a warning nonetheless.

"It seems to me that the best way to solve your problem is to convince him that Dick Grayson and Robin really are two different people."

"Thanks Clark, you really cleared that up for me," I said drily.

"If you don't like my advice why don't you see what Batman has to say?" Two eyebrows went up that time. _Strike two._ I probably should have gone easy on him. After all, I knew he'd had a rough day with Lois, but anxiety got the better of me and I decided to push my luck.

"Sure, and while I'm at it why don't I staple my head to this desk." Alright, I admit it: I get a little testy when I'm under pressure. I blame that on Bruce too. He isn't exactly the role model for anger management.

Superman looked over his monitor again with a wry smile on his mouth

"What do you think, Bruce? Maybe you can shed some light on this situation."

My stomach landed somewhere near my toes and I choked back a groan as a second face appeared just over Clark's shoulder. A familiar scowl greeted me.

"I'd say that _Dick_ better get his _ass_ back to Gotham." He bit out the words, his eyes cold with fury. To my surprise I wasn't intimidated. It was probably because it was no more than I expected. I sighed, pinching the bridge of my nose and shooting an accusing glance at Clark for letting me expose all my secrets without even a hint that he wasn't alone. What the heck was Bruce even doing in Metropolis?

"What time are you sending the Batplane?" I sighed. His eyes narrowed.

"Who said anything about sending a plane? Your new girlfriend can fly, can't she? You've already let her find out everything else, you might as well let her meet the family." _In other words, I had screwed up so badly that I was going to have to claw my way back into his good graces through weeks of humiliation and groveling. As if!_ I didn't know how to feel about taking Starfire to the Manor. She would like Alfred. She might even enjoy the grounds. But in his present mood, Bruce was not going to let her enjoy her stay one bit.

"It's not Star's fault," I said stiffly. His expression remained bland.

"Why should I fault her for being observant? You're the one who couldn't follow simple directions. How many times did I tell you? Don't get involved with a teammate, don't bring Dick Grayson into your life in Jump, don't tell anyone who you are? In less than twenty-four hours you've managed to do all three, and you're not the one who's going to have to deal with this mess, are you?"

"I am," I insisted petulantly, but it was a half-hearted protest. If Slade really did know about me then he was never going to be able to resist the chance to go after the Batman, publically or privately. Why go after the side-kick when you could take down the big guy himself?

"Bruce," Clark cut in gently. Somehow he'd managed to make his incredibly large frame seem unobtrusive, so that I'd almost forgotten he was there. "Did you really think this would never happen? It's the risk we all take having private lives and secret identities." _Oh yea sure, pipe up now. _

"This would never have happened if—"

"—If what? If he never trusted anyone else but you? He's not an island. He needs Starfire; he needs his team. It's only because he respects you as much as he does that he hasn't already told them all before now. At least he's man enough to say he made a mistake. That's more than I can say for you." It was only because he was the Man of Steel that Bruce didn't kick his chair out from underneath him. He'll refuse it until the day he dies, but I know Clark's the one man he's afraid to push too far. Bane, Joker…he'll face them down any day, but ask him to go toe to toe with the Man of Steel and he'll find himself a convenient excuse to avoid the confrontation unless he can retreat to a safer distance. Nevermind that Superman's the only one who won't kill him.

"Robin, I want to see you and Starfire in Gotham, tonight. No excuses, and no one else. Understand?"

"Understood," I mumbled. And even though it was Clark's computer and there was still plenty I wanted to say to him, Bruce reached over and cut the connection feed. I stared at my blank screen for a long time, anger and guilt and apprehension swimming inside me.

I was still sitting there five minutes later when a fax beeped on my machine. I snatched it off the printer and scowled. I was in deep trouble if Bruce was sending me a script.


	11. Chapter 11

**A/N: **Thanks for reading and reviewing. I'm glad to hear that you're enjoying the story.

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Every cell in my body rejected Bruce's plan—mostly because it made me out to look like a complete moron. That was part of my punishment of course.

Not more than an hour later, the doorbell to the Tower rang. We lived on an island with surveillance cameras covering every inch of the terrain. The doorbell had been Beast Boy's idea of a joke, and Cyborg of course went along with it. To top it all off, it played the opening notes of the Power Rangers theme song. It had been so long since they'd installed it that we'd all forgotten that embarrassing fact. I was sitting on the couch in the common room broodily watching Beast Boy and Cyborg play their racing game when the bell went off. Everyone froze, and then Beast Boy and Cyborg fell on each other laughing.

"Idiots," grumbled Raven, who was hovering by the window with a book in her hands.

"I'll get it," I groused. I already knew who it was, and I couldn't bear the humiliation of Beast Boy being the one to open the door.

A courier was waiting for me when I stepped out of the elevator. His hands shook as he handed me a thick envelope with elaborate calligraphy spelling out 'Starfire' across the front. I tipped the guy, who nearly tripped over himself to thank me, and then I signed the brim of his hat for his trouble in booking a ferry all the way out to the island.

"Starfire, you've got mail," I said dully when I returned to the common room. Her eyes sympathetic, she took the letter from me. She knew the outline of Bruce's plan, and she was eager enough to participate if it meant getting the chance to meet my family and see where I grew up. The boys paused the game to hear what the letter said.

_Dear Starfire,_

_I have been trying to find an appropriate way to thank you for rescuing me the other day. Come join me this evening at Wayne Manor where you will be my honored guest. _

_Kisses,_

_Dick._

_Kisses?! _Bruce really ended the letter with _kisses_?!

Understandably Beast Boy and Cyborg were howling again. Beast Boy ran across the room and snatched the letter from her hands to read it for himself.

"Look, the first letters even spell out his name. What a _loser_!" He bent double, holding his stomach. My face was red and my fists were shaking at my sides. Some people think Batman doesn't have a sense of humor. That's not true. He has one, it's just not funny to anyone else but him.

"I find Dick Grayson to be very charming," said Starfire regally. I put my head in my hands. Beast Boy choked.

"You're not actually thinking of going, are you?" asked Cyborg. He wasn't laughing anymore either. "Um, baby girl, I don't think you know him as well as you think you do." _Great, and now the fun part begins..._

"What do you mean?"

"Dude, he's almost as big a player as Bruce Wayne!" exclaimed Beast Boy. "I heard for his birthday last year he rented a yacht and invited the crew from Crazy Chicks Unleashed to film an episode on board."

"Why would he wish to celebrate his birthday with girls who are mentally unstable?"

_Uh oh._ I heard the faint tremble in her voice. Beast Boy's mouth opened and closed for a moment before he looked to Cyborg to explain. Cyborg glared at him before looking to Raven for help. She rolled her eyes.

"It's a TV show about girls that are willing to take off their clothes in public." Starfire, who still didn't completely understand the concept of human modesty, frowned until Raven added, "The women objectify themselves for male attention." Anger flashed in the depths of Starfire's green eyes.

"Is this true?" she shot at me.

"I don't think you should go, Star," I said, and I didn't have to fake a sense of overprotectiveness. Bruce was going to use my reputation against me. The last thing he wanted was for me and Starfire to be together. If she went to Gotham she was going to get hurt.

She squared her shoulders.

"I think you are all being unfair. You are the 'jealous' because he is good-looking and rich." She turned on her heel and started walking toward her room.

"Rob, man, stop her!" hissed Cyborg seriously. "You have no idea what Grayson will do if he gets her alone. The man's a serious playboy." _If only, _I thought bitterly_._ I wished I was half as smooth as the papers made me out to be. I probably wouldn't be in this mess if I was. Still, I had to make a token effort.

"Starfire, if you're going, I'm going with you."

"Dude, so unfair!" Beast Boy whined. "Can't we come too?"

"Someone has to run patrol. Slade's still out there, remember?" That was probably the wrong argument to use, because Cyborg's jaw dropped when he realized that instead of staying behind to track down Slade myself, I was trailing after my girlfriend to keep her from falling for my alter ego. Ignoring him, I held out my hand to Starfire, "let's go."

"Oh Rob, before ya go," Cyborg called as we reached the sliding doors. I turned, grimacing. He and Beast Boy had their cheeks side by side and their hands over their mouths.

"_Kisses_!" they shouted, before dissolving into laughter again.

"I am sorry you had to endure the ridicule," Starfire said as we flew over Jump. She was holding me beneath my arms, flying as fast as she could without risking my health. I loved it.

"S'okay," I replied, pretending to run as a cloud passed beneath my feet. "Come on, Star. Show me what you can really do." I tilted my head back to look up at her and she arched a brow in challenge.

"If you insist."

An hour later I was wind-swept and slightly nauseous, but still cheering for more. Starfire defied the rules of physics in ways I'd never seen any of the airborne superheroes do. Her body was like a ribbon, looping and spiraling effortlessly through the air. Diving through the air with her reminded me of the circus. At one point she dropped me and I somersaulted seven times before her hands caught mine again and she pulled me out of the dive with a laugh. If I could have one superpower this would be it.

We were nearly to Gotham when we encountered a blue-clad figure waiting for us in midair. His red cape flapped impressively in the breeze.

"Superman!" said Starfire, startled. He bowed his head, and then shot me a faint smirk.

"I was sent to tell you that Starfire must arrive in Gotham alone. I will take Robin back to the Titans." Before either of us could protest, he turned and pointed out the distant pinprick that was Wayne Manor. "Starfire, Dick Grayson will meet you there." She and I exchanged a look. Someone was watching us. Reluctantly, she nodded.

"Very well. Thank you, Superman." To my utter humiliation, she laid me in Superman's outstretched arms like I was a baby. He chest rumbled with laughter as I tried to wriggle into a less-emasculating position.

"Farewell, Robin," she said, giving me a salute before she continued on her way.

"Hang on," whispered Superman. I braced myself as he put on a burst of speed and shot us straight back the way I'd just come. In less than a second we had gone forty miles before he turned in a ten-mile arc and started back toward the Bat Cave.

"What was all that about?" I demanded when he slowed down enough that my stomach had time to catch up to me.

"Someone was watching you. When you get inside send a message to the Titans that they are not to leave the Tower for any reason until you get back."

"What if something happens to the city?"

"I will keep an eye on Jump for you."

"So why didn't you tell me Bruce was listening in?" I asked petulantly as the entrance to the Bat Cave came into view. His chest rumbled again with barely restrained laughter.

"What did you want me to say? Did you think he wouldn't ask questions if I cut you off and told you not to speak?"

"You could have given me a hint at least?" I crossed my arms over my chest.

"I did!" he laughed loudly. "As soon as you started talking about Slade I tried to change the subject back to you and Starfire. I even stared at Bruce a couple of times so you would know I wasn't alone, and you still didn't get it." _Oh._ And here I'd thought that his love-sick self just hadn't been listening.

"He really does care about you, Robin. He wouldn't worry so much if he didn't."

"He's just worried I'll accidentally spill the beans on his secrets," I mumbled.

"Do you really think he doesn't have a plan in place in case someone figures out the truth? He's Batman. He's got twenty!" Clark laughed.

By then we were inside the Bat Cave. It was strange to be back there. Everything was familiar. Nothing had changed. It was just as dark and gloomy as ever. Nostalgia made my stomach give a strange lurch. To my right the Batmobile spun slowly on its revolving platform. A series of black motorcycles were lined up along the wall behind it.

"Ahem." I spun around to see Alfred standing by the enormous consul. He had one hand behind his back while the other held a pile of expertly folded clothes.

"It is good to see you again, Master Robin. I have taken the liberty of—"

Before he could finish, before he could put up that silly wall of formality between us, I took a leaf out of Starfire's book and attacked him with a hug. He was so surprised he nearly fell over.

"It's great to see you again, Alfred!"

"You as well, Master Robin," he replied, smiling. Alfred was the one good thing about Wayne Manor. Whenever Bruce pushed me too far or expected too much of me, Alfred had always been there to put me back on my feet again. He had been the only one who understood that I needed a shoulder to cry on after my parents died.

"If you need me, I will be in Jump," said Clark from behind me.

"Thanks Clark."

"Master Dick, you must change quickly. Miss Starfire is already at the gate waiting for you and I fear the paparazzi are most intrigued by her arrival." _Just like old times._ I snatched the clothes he had brought for me and leapt into the shower just long enough to rinse the gel from my hair. By the time I finished changing he had the elevator door opened for me.

"You've gotten slower, Master Dick," he said sagely. "You used to make the change in under five minutes."

"I'm a little out of practice. It's been a while since I had to try and be in two places at once."

"If rumors are true, it has not been quite so long," he said slyly. I sent him a bland expression. _Great,_ Alfred was laughing at me too.

I sprinted down the long corridors of Wayne Manor to the front door. A pair of doormen were there to pull open the heavy oak doors before I even reached them. If they wondered where I'd come from, neither said a word. An obnoxiously long series of steps separated me from the front gate where I could distinctly see Starfire's brilliantly red hair gleaming in the light of the reporter's cameras.

The moment they saw me hurrying toward her the flashes went off like crazy. I had to put up a hand to shield my eyes. Relief and amusement lit up Starfire's face as well. Automatically I reached out my free hand to pull her against me.

"Ladies and Gentlemen, Starfire is here as my guest. I would appreciate it if you wouldn't try to scare her away." Leaving them with that tantalizing tidbit, I turned and started back up the stairs. One reporter was more bold than the others, and Vicky Vale ran to intercept us on the second tier.

"Dick Grayson, when did you return to Gotham? Reports had you in Jump City as of yesterday."

"Wayne Enterprises owns a private jet," I said coolly. Vicky stepped back and looked Starfire up and down.

"What does the heir to the Wayne Empire plan for an evening in with the beautiful alien superhero?" Insinuation dripped from her voice and I curled my arm protectively around Star's waist.

"Checkers."

With that ludicrous reply, I pulled Starfire with me the rest of the way up the stairs. Starfire looked up at the enormous house and gulped. I squeezed my fingers reassuringly against her skin. The doors opened for us just as before, and we stepped into the Entrance Hall. Starfire looked on in awe at the mahogany wood paneling and the marble floors, but I was staring hard at the man in the center of the room. Bruce inclined his head.

"Nice of you to visit, Dick."


	12. Chapter 12

**A/N:** It's really nice to keep getting reviews on this story. Please keep them coming.

May, I'm glad you're enjoying Robin's friendship with Superman. I imagine that over the years they'd have bonded over having to put up with Batman being Batman.

* * *

Bruce escorted us into the first floor drawing room. Alfred was already there with a tray of refreshments. He bowed low to Starfire when she entered, and to my surprise she sank into an actual curtsy. Alfred blanched.

"That is not necessary, Miss Starfire," he said quickly.

"It is not customary to honor the senior member of the household?" she asked, shooting me an uncertain glance. I frowned. I'd never told her that, so I'm not sure where she got that from. If anything, the question on made poor Alfred look more uncomfortable.

"Master Bruce is the senior member of the household, miss. I am employed merely as his butler."

"Don't let him fool you, Star," I leaned over to whisper loudly in her ear. "If it weren't for Alfred this place would fall apart." I meant it to be a joke, but she wasn't smiling. She turned her green eyes on Bruce, who was watching her closely.

"You entrust him with your secrets but you do not allow Robin to entrust others with his?" Bruce arched a brow at her direct attack. His eyes narrowed as they shot in my direction.

"Despite what he says, Alfred is family. I know where his loyalties stand. I know I can trust him."

"And how does one earn your trust?" she asked. "According to Beast Boy you began fighting the crime with Robin when he was only a child."

Pride swelled inside me. _Go Starfire._ In less than five minutes she had managed to pinpoint the exact issue I'd been trying but failing to bring up for years. I was twelve when Bruce adopted me as his ward and partner in crime. Twelve. Considering the dangers we'd faced over the years there was every chance that at some point I would get caught and tortured and all of his secrets would come spilling out. I was a kid who got to roam the streets with Batman. Had he allowed me to spend enough time around regular kids to make friends I'm sure I'd have crumbled under the pressure and told them how cool it was riding in the Batmobile. He'd kept me hidden away from the world until I was mature enough to keep my mouth shut. Beast Boy had been trying forever to get me to tell him what the Batmobile was like, but I refused to say. It was like I was programmed to protect the secret above anything else.

"You wouldn't understand," said Bruce with a dismissive wave of his hand. It was his trademark response for a question he didn't want to answer. I was learning to realize it meant he didn't have an answer, but this was one time I wouldn't let it go.

"What about Selina?"

His jaw clenched.

"It's not the same thing and you know it."

"You're right, it's not the same thing, because Starfire's actually one of the good guys."

"Selina…?" said Starfire curiously. I was impressed with how well she was holding up under the flood of so much information. On the brief occasions where I'd imagined how she'd react if I ever told her I thought she would feel betrayed by all the secrets I had kept, about the life she knew nothing about.

"Catwoman," I answered through clenched teeth. "She and Bruce have been hot and heavy for years." Starfire gasped.

"But she is the criminal!"

"Exactly. He'd rather trust someone who would dime him out the moment you wave something shiny in her face over a teammate. Oh wait, I forgot, Batman doesn't have teammates. He works alone."

"I didn't always work alone, Robin," said Bruce quietly. I was getting so worked up that I almost missed the slight clench of his jaw when he said it. I opened my mouth to respond, and then closed it again. _Did Bruce miss me?_

"It would seem that there is little to be gained from arguing over who is right or wrong," Alfred said smoothly, gliding into the conversation like a fresh breath of air. "We should return to the problem at hand which is the rather serious possibility that Slade Wilson has discovered Robin's secret identity."

"That reminds me," I said loudly. "What was the deal with the invitation? You didn't have to make me sound like such a dork." Bruce's mouth relaxed faintly into the closest thing he had to a smile.

"I wanted to make sure you knew who sent the card this time since your amateur detective skills failed to deduce who sent the first one that lured your girlfriend out of the tower." I was all set to launch into another argument when Starfire jumped between us, her hands glowing in warning.

"Enough!" she snapped. I scowled and swung away to stand on the opposite side of the room. I hadn't been back more than ten minutes before I was dying to be back at the Tower again. This place did things to me—Bruce did things to me. I hated being angry all the time, I hated always having to keep my guard up. It was never like that with the Titans. We knew when to leave each other alone, and when we pushed to far we always found a way to apologize, even those of us who had a hard time saying it in those words.

"So what's the plan, Batman?" I said bitterly.

"You and Starfire will attend a charity even I'm holding on the lawn this evening. The press is already aware that Starfire is here as your guest without Robin or the rest of the Titans."

"So? Slade's four hundred miles away in Jump City. Your charity event can't be but a few hours from now. He won't have time to get here to crash it."

"If you say one more idiotic thing I will revoke the funding for the Titans until I can find someone with a better head on their shoulders to lead them." One warning glance from Starfire kept my mouth shut, but my molars ground against each other in the effort to hold in more angry words. "Why do you think I sent Superman to intercept your arrival? You were ten thousand feet in the air. Did you really think the casual observer would have noticed you up there?" I had understood the reason for the trade, I just hadn't been able to figure out who was watching.

"Slade has operatives all across the country. Is it really that hard to believe that one of them might not be watching the skies in case Robin tried to flee Jump for Gotham once his cover was blown?" I nodded, choosing to ignore the sarcastic bite to Bruce's words.

"So anyone watching saw Superman and Robin go back to Jump while Starfire came here on her own. The reporters outside will have reported that I went out to meet her on the front steps. Slade's not going to buy that though. He'll suspect something's up."

"Precisely, which is why Dick Grayson is going to make himself a target tonight."

"And if Slade turns up?"

"Starfire, Batgirl, and I will deal with him."

"He's going to be trying to out you too, you know."

Bruce shot me that _unlike you I'm not an idiot_ look that grated against my nerves so much.

"I'm counting on it."

"Miss Starfire, would you like a tour of the grounds?" Alfred offered politely into the tense silence as Bruce and I glared at each other. Starfire glanced uncertainly between us before she nodded. Alfred smiled, holding open the door for her before shooting a disapproving look at Bruce and me.

"So…" I said awkwardly. "How's the business?"

"Cut the crap," Bruce said with less of his usual bite. "Why didn't you call me when you knew you were compromised?"

At first I just stared at him, and then I burst into laughter. A muscle in his jaw ticked.

"Are you kidding me?" I sobered. Bruce shifted his weight uncomfortably.

"Why did I have to find out from Clark that you were in trouble?" he repeated, folding his arms over his broad chest. Confused, I just stared at him. If I didn't know any better, I'd say his feelings were hurt. But that was crazy.

"I already knew what you would say," I finally answered. I held up my fingers and ticked off his rules one by one: "No dating teammates, no bringing Dick Grayson to Jump, and no telling any of the Bat family secrets."

"I could have given you some advice if you'd come to me sooner." He sounded downright consternated, and I had the urge to laugh. My mouth began to twitch.

"_You_ give _me_ relationship advice? When's the last time you even went on a second date?"

"Just because I choose not to doesn't mean I don't know how to be in a relationship." He lifted his chin, clearly insulted that I doubted his ability to do something. "I've for damn sure got more experience than Clark Kent." Finally, the laugh broke free. He scowled again. If there's one thing Bruce hates it's to be the butt of someone else's joke. He's always been like that, but Joker's probably had a lot to do with making it worse over the years.

"Clark has Lois. He knew what I was going through."

"Lois makes him weak," Bruce growled. "You saw him that night. She got hurt, and he fell to pieces. You think I want that for you?"

"Starfire's not Lois," I said quietly. There was no need to tell him about Star's past, no need to remind him that she was Tamaranean and probably on par with Wonder Woman in terms of strength. "I'm the one without superpowers, remember?" His nostrils flared. That was another thing Bruce hated, being reminded that he was only human.

"And if things don't work out between you two?" he countered, driving a knife straight to the heart of my deepest fears. Sucking in my breath I fortified myself with the words she had spoken after I told her the truth: _I will go willingly to the Citadel before I ever reveal anything about you to your enemies._

With a heavy heart I lifted my head and looked Bruce straight in the eyes.

"She would rather die than betray me."


	13. Chapter 13

**A/N:** I know I keep saying thanks for all of the reviews but they really do keep me motivated to keep writing this story.

**Sokka-Mushroom**, I know what you mean about Dick being an angsty teen. Bruce does like to bait him though.

* * *

There was only an hour before Bruce's charity function started. While he went off to shower and prepare a speech, I took the opportunity to browse through the Bat Computer files. I have Cyborg to thank for the improvement in my hacking skills. The sheer amount of files Bruce keeps is staggering. With so short a timeframe I had to pass over the information he'd gathered on the Titans for what I was really after.

Slade's file was larger than I'd expected. Mostly, our information was the same: he was a hired assassin who sometimes went by the name of Deathstroke, and had near-superhuman physical and mental abilities that he got from volunteering for an experimental top secret procedure during his military service. Bruce had been tracking his activities world-wide, while I mostly contained my research to his activities in Jump City—I'm only a teenager, I've got to start small. That Bruce had so much information on him meant that he must have tried and failed to bring him in too. That gave me a strange sense of relief. There weren't many criminals that slipped through Batman's fingers.

I closed down the file and sat back in my computer chair. Bruce never did anything without a reason, and judging from all of the files I'd had to bypass on Titan activities, there wasn't a whole lot that went on in Jump City that he didn't know about either. Maybe I should have been a little creeped out by how closely he kept an eye out for me. Maybe later I would be, but at that moment a small voice in my brain was telling me that he had brought me back to Gotham to team up once more. He needed me. All the drama with Starfire had given him a convenient excuse to summon me without outright asking me for help. I smirked. _Bruce, you never change._

Apart from the thrill of the chase, there wasn't much that Batman had to offer Slade, nothing that he could tempt him out of hiding with and know for a certainty that he would come. There was really only one thing that Slade wanted: an apprentice. Namely, me. I was the Boy Wonder, trained by the World's Greatest Detective and able to stand toe-to-toe with Slade even without all of the fancy upgrades the military gave him. So far as I knew there wasn't another out there like me. Oh there were plenty of super-powered kids running around, but men like Bruce and Slade don't want to train side-kicks who already had an edge on them. They want someone whose skill couldn't be doubted, whose glory would carry their legacy on. Trust me, if I could fly and shoot starbolts Bruce would have left me to find vengeance for my parents on my own. He'd blame me for not saving their lives in the first place. But a boy with no powers and no resources needed someone to guide him. Slade just didn't like the direction Batman had taken me in.

As I dressed for the event, I was feeling downright cocky. The revelation that this was all an elaborate way for Bruce to avoid having to admit that he needed my help took my ego and inflated it like a gust of super-breath.

I went to find Starfire before the guests arrived. She was with Alfred, and I knew she would be in good hands. I found them in the kitchen where Alfred was pouring her a cup of tea. Wayne Manor has two kitchens. One is an enormous combination of marble countertops and teak wood cabinets that was mostly reserved for the servants to prepared for events like the one that night. The second was a smaller one located in the family wing. Alfred had sort of commandeered it over the years, and it was the place Bruce and I usually stalked to when we couldn't sleep or were still reeling from a recent fight. Alfred was always there with a cup of tea or cocoa and some sage advice.

"You are certain that Batman's plan will work? What if Slade is victorious and he does the capturing of Robin?" I heard Starfire ask as I came down the hallway. Alfred must have told her that this part of the house was strictly off-limits to anyone but family. I paused outside the door.

"I assure you, Miss Starfire, if there is one thing I can promise it is that Batman would never let anything happen to Robin." _False promise there, Alfred. _ I made a face at his weak attempt to put her at ease. I've been stabbed, shot, strung up and sprayed all on Batman's watch. She must have seen through his words as well because she said, "I do not wish to underestimate Slade. Robin has tried most diligently to bring him to justice and been unsuccessful. I cannot help but worry."

I cleared my throat and pulled open the door. Starfire was seated on one of the stools next to the kitchen island dressed in a tight satin evening gown the same shade of purple as her uniform. Her hair was pinned in a loose bun just behind her left ear with curls spilling over her shoulder. She looked gorgeous. At first, habit made me bite my tongue and look past her at some distant point on the wall, until I realized that I was finally free to tell her that she was the most beautiful thing I'd ever seen.

"Wow, Star." _It didn't come out quite as eloquently as I'd hoped._ She giggled and got up from her chair to show off the dress. It was sleeveless and fit tight to her skin. There were slits up either side that showed off her long legs whenever she moved. It was glamorous and flashy enough to suit Bruce's guests, but it was also perfect in case she needed to do any fighting. There was nothing to restrict her movements, and no fabric that might get in the way.

"Robin! I have been most anxious to see you again. Is this place not glorious? Alfred has shown me the grounds and regaled me with stories of your childhood. Were we right to give you and Batman the space? You appear much calmer than before." It's cute the way she starts going a mile-a-minute when she's excited. From the other side of the island, Alfred was pointedly not looking at us as he stirred his tea, though beneath his pencil moustache I could see him smiling.

"Yea, thanks. I'm feeling much better now."

"Alfred tells me that Batgirl will be here soon. I did not realize you used to have another friend that was a girl with whom you fought crime. But then, I did not know that you spent the week of your birthday alone with the 'insane women who will do anything for attention.' Why have you not invited Batgirl to the Tower?"

_Now there was a loaded question if ever I heard one._ She was only teasing about the _Crazy Chicks Unleashed_ part. Since starting the Titans I'd never been gone for a full week at a time. The Babs part though… she was fishing. Truth was I couldn't deny there had been something there. We never dated, mostly just flirted back and forth until Bruce took me aside and started drilling the 'no dating team members' rule into my head. It had been a crush. Nothing for Starfire to feel threatened about. Still, I'm not so sure about Babs. There'd been times when she treated me like the little kid who followed her around, and others were I'd thought she genuinely liked me. When I left Gotham I cut ties with everyone in it, including her. I'd missed her, but bringing her to the Tower was too much of a reminder of the life I was trying to leave behind.

I hesitated too long and Starfire picked up on the direction of my thoughts. Her eyes grew thoughtful—not the expression I'd expected.

"The guests will be arriving at any minute. I'm supposed to be the sitting duck, remember?" I joked. I held out my hand. "Oh, and it would probably be a good idea if you keep the flying to a minimum tonight. Sorry. Gotham's not as used to seeing superheroes as Jump is." She took it in stride, grounding herself as she strode over to take my arm like a runway model gliding across the catwalk. I grinned. For the first time ever I actually felt like the playboy rich kid the papers made me out to be.

Bruce and I always had to enter these things at the same time. He had two girls with him tonight—tall skinny blonds who didn't seem to speak any English. _Classy, Bruce_. They kept shooting Starfire nasty looks over their shoulders. Starfire ignored them. Her eyes were focused on the gardens which had been decorated with white tents and wrought iron candleholders. There were elegantly-dressed people everywhere, and the moment Bruce stepped out the door a spotlight from one of the upper balconies focused on him.

His speech was witty as usual, though I was a little startled when he pulled me up beside him and announced that I had come home for a quick visit. The crowd of complete strangers clapped and cheered as if my presence meant anything to them. Then Starfire and I were allowed to go down to the party. Between the two of us we attracted a lot of attention, and for a while there it felt like half of Gotham was coming up to shake my hand and introduce themselves to Starfire. Each of them would go home with stories of how they had charmed her with their wit or dazzled her with their money—that's just the type of people Bruce invites to these things.

"Do you want to grab some cake?"

"_Dick_!"

It wouldn't have been smart of me to somersault out of Bab's reach as she came up to tackle me from behind, and I had to remind myself that I was in civilian clothes to keep from doing it just to annoy her. Her arms wound momentarily around my throat, cutting off my air just long enough to make me choke before sliding to a more appropriate position for a hug. I brought my arm up to awkwardly hug her elbow. She squeezed me with everything that she had, and but it was nothing compared to the Starfire hugs I'd grown used to_._

She stepped around me where I could see her, and we grinned at each other. Her shoulder-length red hair was held back by a simple black headband, and she was wearing a short black cocktail dress. Her eyes slid from me to Starfire and went very round. I held my breath. It was the moment I'd been waiting for with equal parts dread and hope. How would they like each other? Would they get along?

"Hello, my name is Starfire. I take it you are Babs?" Starfire smiled and held out her hand. Babs glanced down at it, then at me. I must have looked terrified because she burst into laughter and grabbed Star's hand.

"Hey Starfire, I've been _dying_ to meet you!"


	14. Chapter 14

**A/N: **This part was burning a hole in the back of my brain, so you get two updates today.

* * *

As it turned out, Babs and Starfire hit it off like long lost friends. Babs had tons of stories about me to share, and was probably bursting to tell the much more embarrassing ones about Robin, and Starfire was more than happy to hear about what I'd been like as a kid. All that worrying for nothing… It was almost disappointing. I admit it, it might have been nice to have the two of them fighting over me—you know, for like a minute.

Eventually I pried Starfire away from Babs, knowing that they would find a way to meet up after all this was over to pick up right where they left off.

"I am having a wonderful time, Dick," said Starfire. "Thank you for showing me your home." She moved to a nearby balustrade and leaned over it, smiling at me. Her position and the low-cut dress gave me a tantalizing glimpse of orange skin that made my mouth run dry. A cat smile curled her lips. Why did we have to be standing in the middle of the Wayne estate with two hundred strangers watching us when all I wanted was to have her up against my bedroom door again, her fingers in my hair and her mouth on mine…? _Why did you waste so much time, Grayson?_ I was painfully aware that I hadn't kissed her since that night in my room. There just hadn't been time.

"Smile for the birdie!" said a syrupy-sweet voice from just behind us. Starefire and I looked around at the same moment, and I recognized a pair of wide, blue eyes the instant before the flash went off. There was no time to cover Star's eyes, no time to brace. One second we were standing there lost in each other, and the next a blast of Joker venom was searing both our eyes. Starfire's scream sent shivers up my spine. I dropped to my knees, forcing my fists into my eyes as the burning drove me near out of my mind. Around us came the crackle of machine-gun fire. People screamed, and above it all came the horrifyingly familiar sound of laughter.

The photographer grabbed a fistful of my hair and started pulling me with her. _What was Harley doing here?_ I didn't try to fight her off. For all I knew this was part of Bruce's plan—and if it was, I was going to let Starfire drag him into the stratosphere by his ankle and drop him the way he liked to drop criminals from rooftops while he was interrogating them.

Harley dragged me around the side of the Manor. I made myself dead weight, and she had to let go of my hair to grab me under my arms.

"Thank you, my dear. I'll take that."

Despite the venom in my eyes, despite the fact that I was supposed to appear like a helpless victim, the sound of Slade's cool amusement roused every battle instinct I had in me. I opened my eyes in time to see him drive his fist hard into Harley's chest. She folded around his fist and flew back into a boxwood hedge. Water streamed from my eyes in a vain effort to rinse the poison out. Still, I could see Slade standing over me.

"Well, well, Robin," he said with danger dripping from each word. "You brought your friends into this, and I brought mine."

"I don't know what you're talking about," I gritted out. Every muscle in my body screamed at me to get up and fight. He was so _close_. If I could just get up this might all be over.

"No one is coming to save you, Robin. You are mine now."

"You've got the wrong person," I snarled.

He whirled, and even through my hazy vision I saw his left foot coming for my head. _Don't do it,_ I willed myself. Slade couldn't win.

_Wham!_ The heel of his boot struck me clean across the jaw, snapping my head around with such force I'm lucky it didn't break my neck. I tasted blood.

"Enough pretending," he said, advancing on me where I lay face-down on the ground. "Fight me." I curled into a ball, groaning. He lashed out again, kicking me hard in the ribs. "_Fight me!"_

I couldn't face him as Robin, but that didn't mean Dick Grayson had to go down without a fight. Rolling onto my back, I glared up at him.

"I don't know who you are, but I will make you pay for this."

"Enough!" he roared. His foot shot out again, and this time I raised my wrist to protect my head.

"You're not fooling anyone, Robin. Get up!"

_Ping!_ He jerked away suddenly and went into a defensive crouch. I flung up my arm just as a dark shadow landed in the space between us.

"Ah, coming to his rescue again I see. How you must tire of it."

Batman said nothing. He was scariest when he was silent. Even Slade seemed to think so, because he reached over his shoulder to unsheathe a broadsword I'd never seen before. Batman flapped his hand in my direction, telling me to get out of there. It went against everything I stood for, but I rolled onto all fours, stumbled to my feet, and started running back toward the back of the Manor just as the two figures behind me sprang into action.

I came around the corner just as another spattering of machine gun fire crackled. Rearing back, I flattened my back against the wall, peering around the edge. All of the guests were on the ground. Two dozen of Joker's men walked along the garden paths toting machine guns and wearing their trademark clown masks. Quickly, I scanned the crowd for Starfire. Surely she was more than a match for these guys. Why hadn't she taken care of them? Why hadn't she come to save me? My heart began to race as I scanned the grounds for a glimpse of orange skin and red hair.

She wasn't there. And she wasn't the only one missing. There was no sign of the Joker either.

One of Joker's goons wandered close to where I was hiding. Seizing my opportunity, I jumped him from behind and put him in a chokehold until his body stopped twitching and went limp. Dragging him into the shadows I pulled off his mask and pulled it over my head. Quickly, I stripped out of my dinner jacket and skimmed out of my dress pants. His clothes were too big, but I doubted anyone was going to be paying enough attention to notice. With some distaste, I picked up his gun.

Batman has a very strict no-gun policy—I can't say I blame him. I don't have the same hang-ups about guns that he does, and I clutched the weapon against my side like I'd been born with it. There was too much danger to walk out there without any weapon. I needed to get to the Bat Cave. I needed my gadgets. I would be useless without them. Dressed like one of Joker's men, I started walking straight for the Manor.

"Not such a big hot shot now, are you, _Wayne_?"

_What...?_! I turned around just in time to see one of Joker's men pull Bruce into the center of the gardens with a gun to his head. Bruce didn't struggle, but his jaws was tense and I could see his fists balled at his sides. It bothered him just as much if not more than it did me to act helpless. There was no denying that it was Bruce, though. _But if that was Bruce, then who…? _

The thug sank his fist deep into Bruce's belly. There were gasps from the crowd. The clown brought his knee up under Bruce's jaw as he doubled over. His limp body hit the ground with a dull thud. A cry of denial rose up in me, and I sank my teeth into my bottom lip to hold it back. What was going on? Bruce was out here getting beaten up by Joker's men, Batman was back there taking Slade on by himself, Starfire and Joker were nowhere to be seen, and I didn't see any sign of Batgirl. _So much for Bruce's backup plans._


	15. Chapter 15

**A/N: **A long update since I didn't update yesterday. I'm trying to get a feel for writing action scenes. Any advice would be greatly appreciated.

* * *

No one was paying much attention to me when I climbed the steps and went into the Manor. All eyes were riveted on the guy in the clown mask who was still jeering over Bruce and giving him a swift kick in the ribs every now and then. Bruce doesn't kill, but I was willing to bet my share of the Wayne fortune that before this was over Batman was going to get a little practice in on a new human punching bag.

Closing the door behind me, I locked it and immediately began dismantling my machine gun as I made my way through the house. You don't leave a weapon lying around for your enemy to pick up and use against you later. Just taking the bullets out wasn't good enough because who knew how many rounds these goons had hidden on them. Joker doesn't pick them for their brains, but they all seem to get a pretty big kick out of blowing things up, and Joker is more than happy to give them plenty of ammunition to do it.

I came around the corner of the hallway that would take me to the family wing and the nearest access point to the Bat Cave when a frying pan swung out of nowhere and nearly broke my nose. Forgetting myself, I did a back-handspring to put some distance between me and my attacker. To my relief, it was only Alfred. Quickly, I whipped off my mask so he could see it was me. He let out a short puff of breath.

"I am most relieved to see you, Master Dick," he said by way of an apology as he smoothly lowered the frying pan to his side. The relief couldn't have been written more plainly on his face. We didn't waste time talking. I sprinted for the hidden panel that would take me to the Bat Cave with Alfred right behind me. I started undressing in the lift that took us down, and by the time we reached the first floor I was shivering in only my briefs—caves are notoriously chilly. While I yanked on my uniform, Alfred accessed the Bat Computer to pull up the video surveillance of the scene. The main screen was the size of our wall-sized television back at the Tower, and as I pulled on my green leggings I watched as Harley approached Starfire and I with her venom-filled camera and sprayed us in the face. I flinched as if I was experiencing it all over again.

I didn't watch myself from that point. My eyes locked on Starfire, whose screams were muted on the feed, but I could feel her pain as she covered her eyes and flung her head back. In the background, Joker jumped onto the fountain that decorated the middle of the garden and started firing bullets into the air. He was laughing his insane cackle. Five of his men jumped Starfire. She sprang into action, flinging them away from her and igniting her starbolts, but while she was distracted with the thugs who kept attacking her from all directions, Joker snuck up behind her, mouthed something, and tazed her.

"Zoom in on his mouth," I commanded. The growl that came out of my mouth sounded more like it belonged to Batman than me, and Alfred glanced sideways at me as he hurried to do as I asked.

We had to replay the video three times before I was sure I'd read Joker's lips correctly. _Let's see how fast Birdie comes when we make this little worm glow._

Starfire slumped to the ground, twitching from the aftershocks of the tazer. Joker kicked her toward his men and tossed sticks to two of them that lit up like sparklers. As Starfire started coming to her senses again, they prodded her with the electrified ends, and she went limp once more.

They put duct tape over her eyes—I guess to keep her from hitting them with her eyebeams—another strip over her mouth, and duct taped her wrists and ankles. Like I said, Joker doesn't pick them for their brains. Even with only a third of her strength she would be able to snap free from that, but judging by how much the two thugs were enjoying their sparkly new toys, they wouldn't give her the chance to regain enough strength to try.

I couldn't watch that anymore. Instead, I shifted the view to figure out what had happened to Bruce. How had he managed to be in two places at once? He was easy enough to track. He hadn't strayed far from the door after making his speech. When Joker started firing bullets, he ducked to the ground like everyone else, but one of the clowns climbed up the steps to drag him down to the main floor. He'd never left. It was someone else beneath the cowl. My mind hit a blank wall as I tried to imagine who Bruce trusted enough to give them access to the Bat suit. I filed it away for later.

Alfred and I were interrupted by a pop-up window in the upper right-hand corner of the massive screen.

"Oh thank goodness, I've been trying to get ahold of someone for twenty minutes now," Batgirl hissed in relief.

"Where are you?" I demanded.

"Robin, you've got to come quick. Joker's got Starfire. He took her to the fair grounds." I closed my eyes in a grimace as barely suppressed memories threatened to overwhelm me. _Of all places._ "She's not looking too good."

I gritted my teeth, desperate to keep from biting Babs' head off. I knew why she hadn't interfered yet. Joker wasn't the sort of criminal you just jumped from behind. Even I wouldn't just walk into one of his warehouses without knowing that I had backup on the way. She said she'd been calling and getting no answers. I knew I should be grateful that she'd managed to stay on their trail and give me a location.

"We'll be there in ten minutes," I promised. She nodded and cut the line. I spun out of my chair and walked over to the row of bicycles. Five gleaming black bikes stood in a line like show models in an upscale dealership.

"_We,_ Master Robin?" asked Alfred mildly from behind me. I reached the end of the row and punched the nearly invisible black button situated on the cave wall with my left hand while my right snatched up my communicator. The metal floor slabs parted and a new motorcycle rose up to align with the others. This one was sleeker, sportier, and was painted blood red.

"Yo, Robin, what's going on? Starfire's communicator just went offline," Cyborg's voice announced from my communicator the moment my call went through. Scowling, I approached the new R-Cycle and swung my leg over the seat.

"Joker's got her. They're at the Gotham City Fair Grounds. I'm having the coordinates sent to you. I don't care how you do it, but meet me there now." I settled my weight onto the bike and it roared to life. Cyborg spluttered for a moment, asking questions I didn't have time for. How had Joker gotten ahold of Starfire? What happened to Slade? How were they supposed to get across the country in only a few minutes. With another growl, I snatched up my communicator again and brought it up to my face so he could see just how serious I was.

"He's using Starfire as bait to bring me back to Gotham. If we don't get her out of there he's going to kill her. I don't care what it takes. Get to the Fair Grounds." _Click._ I jammed the communicator back on my belt. Alfred was standing next to me now holding out a new helmet that matched the bike. There was a pained expression on his face. He hated nights like these. There were so many questions, so many ways that things could go from horrible to disastrous. But Alfred was an old pro at this. Despite his misgivings, he assumed his usual business-like manner.

"Good luck, Master Robin."

Nodding, I squeezed the throttle and the R-Cycle flew along the tunnel and exploded into the night.

The new bike handled like nothing I'd ever ridden before, but I barely registered its pinpoint precision and awesome power. Joker had Starfire. He was using her to bring Robin back to Gotham City. Everything Bruce had ever told me about the dangers of dating a teammate, of getting involved, was playing out right in front of my eyes with flashing letters overhead blaring the words, "I told you so." Joker had taken Starfire to the Fair Grounds, the same fair grounds where four years earlier the Flying Graysons had fallen to their deaths when their trapeze wires were cut. I had no doubt that he planned to kill her. Starfire meant nothing to him. The only reason he hadn't done it yet was because he wanted me to see it happen, wanted to give me a reason to want to kill him—like I didn't have enough already. If he hurt her… I revved the bike and doubled the speed limit.

Babs was waiting on a nearby rooftop. I spotted her because I knew the sort of vantage point she would need to keep an eye on things. I left the bike in an alleyway and grappled onto the roof to join her. She jumped as I landed behind her, and I could see that she was disappointed I was alone.

"I thought you were bringing backup," she said evenly. I leveled a look at her.

"It's on his way."

"He's not coming?"

"I don't know what the hell he's up to, but the last I saw, Batman had his hands full dealing with Slade and Bruce was getting the crap kicked out of him by one of the clowns. _Where is she_?" Batman was the least of my worries. It was his plan that had backfired and put my teammate in danger. Let him get himself out of trouble. After all Batman didn't need a sidekick. Babs regarded me silently for a moment, as if she was afraid to tell me. I balled my hands into fists, ready to leap off the building and start looking for myself.

"She's in the convention center," she said softly. "He's got men guarding the doors. There's a skylight open on the roof though, but I don't see a way up there without drawing their fire."

"Not a problem," I said, squinting into the distance to analyze the situation. Everything she said was true. Ten men, ten machine guns. The skylight was open and looked to be the only way in—but Batman was known to swoop down from the rooftops so I doubted that there wouldn't be someone waiting for us if we chose that very conspicuous route.

"Cyborg, what's your ETA?" I moved the communicator close to my mouth so the sound wouldn't carry. There was nothing but static on the other end. That was a good sign. Babs sucked in a sharp breath.

"You're bringing the Titans here? I bet Batman is going to have something to say about that."

"Batman doesn't have a say in this. Joker took one of my team and we're going to get her back."

"Whoa," she murmured, staring at me like she'd never seen me before. Behind us the air began to vibrate. Babs gave another more excited 'whoa' of shock as a portal opened up and the remaining three Titans stepped through it. I didn't even turn around.

"Raven," I said immediately. "We need to get inside that building." I pointed. Raven glanced at Batgirl, whose mouth was still slightly open with shock at their abrupt appearance, and a second later all five of us found ourselves encased in the icy black feel of her powers.

Traveling via cosmic energy is not a pleasant experience. It's cold and leaves you feeling disoriented and slightly queasy. Batgirl staggered as Raven's powers deposited us on the other side. We were in the rafters of the convention center, on the opposite side of the ceiling than where the skylight was open. Just as I'd suspected, two shooters were positioned just beneath it with guns pointed toward the sky.

"Dude," whispered Beast Boy, looking down. Joker stood directly beneath us. Starfire was sitting on a simple aluminum folding chair. Her wrists were shackled behind her back by great big metal chains. Her head drooped forward over her lap. I was too far away to tell if she was still conscious, but I glanced at Raven and she mouthed back, 'barely.' While we stood there assessing the situation beneath us, Joker held up one of the cattle prods he'd used before and inspected the sparking end of it.

"While we wait, I thought I'd serenade you, m'dear. Perhaps you know this one. _Twinkle twinkle little—_" He jabbed her in the arm with the cattle prod and Starfire's head snapped back with a howl.

"Titans, go!" I snarled.

At the sound of my voice every single one of Joker's men swiveled their guns in our direction. We dove. Raven's eyes glowed white from beneath her hood as she raised her arms over her head. A supernatural breeze blew the ends of her cloak back, and for a moment everyone stopped to stare at her. I felt the crackle in the air as her powers gathered.

Azarath metrion zinthos.

The room exploded. The glass ceiling shattered as she created a vacuum of air that sucked the guns straight from the clowns' hands. In the chaos, I fired two bird-a-rangs at Joker, knocking the cattle prod away from him and the other hitting him in the shoulder to drive him back. I landed hard in front of Starfire, crouching to absorb most of the impact. When Joker saw me his green eyes lit up like a child's.

"You came!" he cried gleefully. "I was so hoping you would!"

A green rhinoceros barreled into him from behind, sending him flying. Using the distraction to my advantage, I spun to face Starfire. Her eyes cracked open but her gaze didn't focus on me as I approached. _God Star, what did he do to you? _She looked awful. There were burn marks on the dress and one of the straps had torn. I swallowed the rise of bile at the thought of them touching her.

"Robin…?" she whispered faintly. A lump rose in my throat. I swallowed it quickly, getting to work on the chains around her ankles.

"It's all right, Star. I'll have you out of here soon."

"Robin…!" Her eyes began to glow green as her voice grew more panicked. She wasn't seeing me. She began to struggle wildly, the muscles of her arms straining. My stomach clenched with dread as my attempts to calm her fell on deaf ears.

"Hang on Star, I—"

Green energy blinded me. It wasn't just coming from her hands though. A cocoon of green light wrapped around her. It burned my hands and quickly I retreated a few steps.

"Ah, ah, ah…!"

_Clang!_ A long, metal pole cracked against my back, barely missing the fragile spot at the base of my skull. Dazed, I rolled out of the way as Joker bore down on me, his red lips stretched in the insane smile that often haunted my nightmares. I tried to get up, but I staggered and fell onto one knee. He swung the pole at me again, hitting me full in the chest. The force of it lifted me off the ground and sent me sailing straight into the nuclear green ball behind me. In the short seconds I flew toward her, I felt my skin blister from the heat of her energy. I knew I would go up like a piece of tissue paper when we collided, and there was nothing I could do about it. I squeezed my eyes shut and braced for the searing impact.

Her name was 'Star Fire.' Now I knew why.

The moment I touched her she went off like a solar flare.


	16. Chapter 16

**A/N: **For anyone waiting for updates on 'Foundations,' it got to be a little too much trying to bounce back and forth writing a chapter a day for this story and that one. As soon as this story is finished I'll get back to work on that one. There's not much more left in this one.

* * *

The green light was so intense that I was temporarily blinded. I landed hard on my right side, and all of the wind was knocked out of me. My body hurt everywhere. Every inch of my skin felt raw and tight, like I'd scored a second degree sunburn after a day at a nude beach. Reaching blindly, I grasped the edge of my cloak and pulled it over my head, as if that would do much use against the heat still radiating from her.

The room was deadly silent. No one moved. I'm not sure we even dared to breathe—and that's saying something when not even the Joker's willing to break the silence. Then I heard a noise that sent shivers racing across my skin. Starfire growled. But it wasn't the usual sound she made when she was fighting. Her battle cries were usually high-pitched and adorable—every time I hear it I can't help but want to smirk at how cute she sounds. This wasn't cute. This was the sound a tiger makes when it's standing right behind you and it knows you have nowhere to go. It was a slow ripple of sound that promised death.

Blinking rapidly, I raised my head and saw her standing in the same spot where the aluminum chair had been. It was now a mangled heap of melted metal. The green glow had gone out, all except for her eyes which were blazing. Her shoulders hunched as the muscles of her upper body tensed and her hands curled into fists.

"St-Starfire," I called. My voice shook, but I didn't care. She didn't even flinch. Her attention was fixed on the Joker who was lying flat on his back staring up at her with delight and wonder in his eyes. Around the room his men groaned and tried to stand. The Titans and Batgirl quickly took up defensive stances to keep them on the ground. Joker wasn't paying attention to them. He was staring at Starfire with the wide-eyed delight of a child who asked for a bike for Christmas and finds a motorcycle under the tree.

"Ooooh," he said, raking his eyes up and down her tall figure with renewed interest. "You might just be more fun than the bird."

"Shut up!" I shouted, panicked. I had seen Starfire like this before. When she'd escaped from the Gordanians and crash-landed on Earth, she'd been hell-bent on breaking free of the metal bracers they'd put on her to prevent her from using her starbolts. She'd been desperate not to be taken prisoner again. She was in survival mode. Any threat to her safety she would destroy, plain and simple.

There was a shuffling sound behind me as Batgirl skirted the room to reach me.

"Robin, what—" but before she could so much as touch me, a starbolt struck her full in the chest, knocking her back against the wall. Joker laughed hysterically.

"No!" Despite the pull of my raw skin I surged to my feet, but Babs was already standing again. She had one hand over her chest. Taking one look at Starfire's face, she fired her grappling gun into the rafters and vanished from sight.

"Dude!" gasped Beast Boy, his eyes wide. "Star stop!"

She narrowed her eyes in his direction, and for a moment I thought her gaze flickered with recognition. Then her lip curled back from her teeth, and she hissed a feral sound. My heart broke. Joker's eyebrows rose, as if this was all playing out better than he could have imagined. Trust him to be delighted to find himself inches from his own death.

"Raven!" I called. She was already descending from her position by the ceiling with glowing eyes of her own.

"Starfire," she said in a deep voice laced with power. "We're not going to hurt you."

"Hey, you're ruining the show!" complained Joker, picking up his pipe to throw at her. A blue blast from Cyborg's sonic cannon obliterated the pipe. Joker's men stirred restlessly. Joker blinked at the empty space in his hand and grinned evilly in his direction, a promise of payback. Cyborg took an involuntary step backwards. I cringed. Heroes never back down.

Starfire swayed. A closer look and I could see that her legs were trembling with the effort to keep her on her feet. Channeling so much green energy must have sapped her stores. It was sheer stubbornness that was keeping her on her feet, but that didn't mean she was defenseless. Her strength is powered by 'boundless confidence' as she calls it, and right now with only mere mortals as her opponents she was probably feeling pretty confident.

I wasn't the only one who realized she was at the end of her strength thought.

"Oh please, is that all?" Joker whined. In a weird move, kind of like a spider righting itself, he got to his feet and strode toward her. Already my feet were in motion. Time seemed to slow down. I saw Star's eyes latch onto him, saw her summon her starbolts to her hands. Her hand reached for his shirt, and I just barely managed to force myself into his place. Her hand closed around my throat and squeezed. My skin burned under her touch, blistering at the continued exposure to her light.

"St-ar," I croaked. Her eyes widened as she realized that it was me and not Joker. She stared blankly at me, not quite seeing me.

"I always took you for the submissive-type," said Joker, watching us in amusement.

Starfire lifted her free hand to aim a starbolt at his face. I shook my head, drawing her attention back to me. Confusion sliced through the frenzy. It was like she was pleading with me. _They made me a prisoner again, tortured me and chained me. Why can I not destroy them for what they have done?_ Sadly, I gave a firm shake of my head. _Don't let them turn you into one of them. Come back to us, Star._

"Ro-bin," she breathed. Suddenly her hand jerked back from my throat and her legs finally gave out. I knelt over her, trusting the others to keep Joker and his men at bay. Raven appeared beside us.

"Get her out of here," I muttered. She glanced at my face, her eyes already blazing white light.

"I think it's time we all booked it home," Cyborg muttered, backing up so that he was standing between me and Joker and the wall of his men with his sonic cannon poised to fire at the first person who so much as twitched. Beast Boy ran to us in the form of a green jaguar and positioned himself on the other side of our circle, protecting us.

"You're coming too," Raven said to me. I glanced around. Batgirl was stretched out along one of the rafters watching us. I couldn't just abandon her.

I shook my head. Joker had to pay for this. I needed to see him suffer for what he had done to my girl. Raven sighed.

A ghostly black raven engulfed my four teammates. Cyborg bent down and lifted Starfire into his arms. Her head flopped back against his elbow and her long hair splashed over his arm and dusted the floor.

"Well no wonder Batsy has been so grumpy lately," said Joker behind me. "His little birdie flew away and found himself a shiny new star to follow." He snapped his fingers, and all twenty of his men started closing ranks around us. I crouched, keeping track of each and every one.

"What do you want, Joker?" I demanded. He huffed, disgruntled.

"I've missed you birdie. Don't you remember how much fun we used to have together?"

"The last time I saw you, you put a bullet in my shoulder."

"You _do_ remember! Oh, I'm so glad." He clapped his hands together in delight.

Over his shoulder, I saw one of the shadows move. A surge of relief went through me that was as annoying as it was welcome. I'd never realized how tuned to each other we were. My eyes held Joker's. His pupils were vibrating in his eyes, dancing back and forth so quickly that it made me slightly dizzy to keep looking. It was like his mind was a vacuum sucking mine toward the madness that consumed him.

"Never again," I said softly. "This is the last time you use my friends to try to get to me. I will destroy you."

"Ooh, I do wish you would," he whispered back, relishing the threat.

A small metal ball landed in front of his feet. Instinctively I held my breath as thick smoke filled the room. Ducking down, I kicked both of Joker's feet out from beneath him and spun to intercept the thug attempting to rush me from behind.

Batgirl swung down to join in the battle once more. She landed in the center of a ring of five guys. They jumped at her arrival, but cracked their knuckles and chuckled to themselves—like they got the easy end of the deal. Babs was relatively new at this compared to me, but she was still a force to be reckoned with. I didn't even waste my time worrying whether she would be all right.

I leapt onto the shoulders of another oncoming thug and used my momentum to knock him to the ground. Rolling to keep moving, I sprang up and dished out two swift kicks and blow to the ribs of the next guy. Then I heard the soft swoosh of a cape and felt a familiar presence at my back.

And just like that I was twelve years old again, fighting alongside my hero like it was the most natural thing in the world. We were seamless, dancing around each other so that the clown he knocked to the ground provided the perfect springboard for my next back-handspring. The thug I kicked in the stomach bent double just as Batman brought his arm sweeping up with bone-crushing accuracy. In that moment I realized that it would always be like this. No matter how much distance I put between us, how many barriers I built, how far I pushed Bruce out of my life, he was Batman and I was Robin. Nothing else mattered.

"Nice of you to drop in," I said over my shoulder as he stood back to back for a moment. He gave a brief nod before delivering several brutal blows to his opponent's torso.

"Good of you to wait for me."

"This is nice, isn't it Batsy?" Joker called out. He'd climbed to the top of a short pile of crates so that he could watch us over the heads of his men. Batman and I swiveled to face him. Batgirl delivered a final kick to the last of her foes and took up Batman's left flank. Joker grinned at us. "Finally the gang's all here. You, the girl, and the baby bird—who's not such a baby anymore. Did you get a load of the cans on that—"

A bird-a-rang hit him in the chin, knocking him off his little perch. I ran for him, dodging between his men to tackle him before he could get back up. My knee caught his chin and snapped his head back. I grabbed a fistful of green hair and began punching him as hard as I could. He started laughing. It rang in my head. It needed to stop. Now. I had to make it stop. I punched him in the teeth, the jaw, the ribs, but the cackling just went on and on.

A hand grabbed the end of my cape and yanked me away. I spun with my fist raised only to find Batgirl staring at me with wide eyes. Batman lifted Joker by the front of his shirt. Blood oozed between Joker's teeth as he stretched his lips in his impossibly wide smile. His eyes narrowed with demented glee as he looked at Batman and then slid his gaze to me.

"He's all grown up, isn't he? Flown the nest and everything! But don't worry, Bats. You'll always have _me_ to keep you company." Batman drove a fist into his face.


	17. Chapter 17

Bruce refused to send me back to Jump that night. I had burns all over my body and by the time we returned to the Bat Cave the bruise on my cheek from Slade's boot had turned a nasty shade of purple. We argued—obviously—but he refused to fly me there in the Batplane, and even I knew I wasn't in shape to fly there myself. Batgirl wisely kept to her side of the cabin, shooting furtive glances in my direction. Each time she did it I felt my anger prickle. _Don't give me that look like I'm overreacting! My girlfriend was just kidnapped, tortured, and forced to relive the worst memories of her life, and he's not letting me go to her when she needs me to be there. _Whether she read the thoughts in my mind or just thought better of trying to get between us, when we landed in the Bat Cave she meekly climbed out without saying a word to me.

Bruce offered me a hand out of the plane, but I knocked it aside. I stomped past him. By then my adrenaline had worn off and I was feeling each injury. It surprised me that Alfred wasn't waiting for us with painkillers on a tray, but with so much happening on the grounds it was extremely likely he'd been called to other duties to cover our absences. Oh well, I knew where he kept the morphine. I just had to make it upstairs. Wearily, I lifted my head and judged the distance to the elevator. Only a short flight of steps and about twenty feet separated me. My knees could buckle once I was inside.

"Dick, I'm sorry," said Bruce as I put one hand on the railing and wearily put a foot on the lowest step. I froze. "I underestimated Slade. He usually works alone, and I didn't consider that he might team up with someone else—much less Joker."

"It's not me you should be apologizing to," I said tightly. My fingers clenched around the wrought iron railing. In my mind I saw Starfire slumped forward in her chair with her torn dress and glassy eyes. All because Batman thought he always had everything under control. If he knew what he'd put her through—the memories it had brought back… Anger licked my insides and I turned to face him.

He still wore the Bat suit, but he had removed the cowl. It was odd seeing him that way, half-Batman, half-Bruce. One hand rested across his ribs where I knew he bore bruises from the beating he had taken at the hands of Joker's man.

"Was it worth it at least?" I asked. "Did you at least manage to convince Slade that Bruce Wayne and Batman couldn't possibly be the same person?"

His eyes were unfathomable as he stared across the empty space into mine. Finally, he made a sharp slashing gesture with his chin.

"So why didn't you send Clark to come help us at the fairgrounds once he was finished with Slade?" Yes, I worked that part out for myself. After all there are only so many people that Bruce actually trusts and Alfred can't fill out the suit and make it convincing. Bruce's jaw tightened.

"He wanted to come, but I stopped him." My nostrils flared, and I saw red. "I knew you and your team had everything under control."

"_We didn't have anything under control!" _I exploded. "_Did you see her?_ Did you see what they turned her into? He did that because of _me_, because he thought he could use _her_ to lure _me_ back to Gotham."

"No." Bruce shook his head. "It wasn't about you at all, Dick. It was about me. Joker hurt Starfire because she mattered to you, yes, but he hurt you because he knew that you mattered to me." He said it so calmly. His expression never changed. Me on the other hand, I was floored. Bruce never spoke of feelings or relationships and caring about people. We were heroes. Our mission was to ensure that justice prevailed. Nothing else mattered. In all our years together I had always viewed myself as the kid he had taken pity on and agreed to take under his wing because I had lost my parents to the decay of the city the same way he had. We fought crime together, we trained, we solved mysteries, we argued. Sure we depended on each other, but I thought he'd been just as relieved by my leaving as I was to go. I shot a glance at Babs, who was watching us closely as she removed her gloves.

"You boys are so stubborn," she grumbled. "Why can't you just admit that you miss each other and get it over with?"

_Miss him?_ Babs never understood what it was like. She had it easy. Sure Batman put her through the same training I had to go through, but at the end of the day she got to go home to her parents and her friends and her normal life. I never got that. I lived at the Manor; I was surrounded by Batman all the time. There was no normal life for Dick Grayson. When I wasn't pushing myself past every physical, mental, and emotional boundary, I was pretending to be someone I wasn't for the cameras that watched my every move. It was amazing I stayed sane long enough to realize I needed to get out. If it hadn't been for the Titans I might never have realized just how screwed up Bruce had made me. I didn't know what it was like to just chill out and play video games. I'd never taken the time to stop and appreciate the joy that can be found in everyday life. Now here I was back at the Bat Cave and it was all coming back to me. Old habits were quickly taking root. The anger, the blame, the hurt were pulsing wounds that had been ripped open again.

Bruce never praised me for a job well done. There was always more work to do. The world might call me the Boy Wonder, but to him I was just a sidekick who needed constant supervision to keep from getting himself killed. I had never felt like I was good enough. Batman casts a long shadow and Robin would forever be trapped in it. But it hadn't been Batman to stop the Joker tonight. It had been the Titans. My team. The team I led.

"There was an earthquake in South America or else I'd have Superman give you a lift back to the Tower," said Bruce finally. Babs shot him an impatient look. He ignored her.

"I'll go back first thing in the morning," I conceded. Really, I needed sleep. My legs were jelly and my arm was holding most of my weight up on the steps. Bruce nodded.

"I trust Starfire won't sustain any lasting damage." _God, we were being so polite to each other. It was creepy!_

"It's tough to say at this point. Cyborg sent me a comcast saying she's gone into a healing sleep. It could be a day or two before she comes out of it." He nodded, his hand gently probing the bruises along his ribcage.

"You're impossible, Bruce," said Babs with a huff. "For months I've had to put up with you moping because your best friend left and now he's right here and you're acting like you can't wait to get rid of him again. Dick, stop being such an ass. You know he's sorry but he's too proud to say it. He wouldn't let Clark go after you because if you needed help he wanted to be the one to come to your rescue, just like the old days." I didn't know what to say. This entire conversation was simply too bizarre.

"Really?"

"Yes, really," said Bruce bitterly. "I've missed fighting beside you, Robin." The way he said it you'd have thought we were forcing him to admit that he liked to dress up in tutus and do pirouettes around the Bat Cave. To my surprise, I found myself smirking.

"I don't blame you. They don't call me the Boy Wonder for nothing."

He shot me a look, but banked in his eyes was a warmth that was both familiar and alien to me. It had always been there, but I'd never noticed it.

"Go get some sleep, Robin. You've got an early plane to catch."

Don't get me wrong, I was still angry. When I saw Starfire again and saw the damage that had been done to her I'd probably be furious with him all over again, but it wasn't often that Bruce told me that I mattered to him and darn it, it felt good. With a faint half-smile that was part grimace of pain, I turned and made my way to the elevator.


	18. Chapter 18

**A/N: **The story's not quite over yet.

* * *

It was five a.m. when I burst through the doors of the Tower's infirmary and skidded to the side of Starfire's bed. The others were still asleep, though a green kitten was curled up on one of the padded chairs in the corner of the room. His ears twitched and slowly he pried open his eyes. A second later, Beast Boy sat up and stretched.

"Dude, how'd you get here?"

"I got a lift from Batman," I said off-handedly, not taking my eyes off Star. "How is she?"

At the mention of Batman he froze mid-stretch, then he gave a small disbelieving shake of his head at my indifference to it all and stepped up to my side.

"She passed out while Raven was transporting us here. She hasn't woken up since. Raven said she tried to go into her mind to make sure everything was okay, but Starfire was blocking her somehow." He glanced uneasily at me. "How could she block Raven?" It was rare moments like these when I got to see the mature side of Beast Boy. When the situation called for it he could put away all the 'dudes' and focus on the important things. Apart from the one comcast from Cyborg that Starfire had been stabilized and Raven was repairing the damage the tazers had done to her, I'd had no word on her condition. Like Beast Boy I was more than a little surprised to know that she had the mental and psychic capabilities to build a shield around her mind that could keep Raven out. When I didn't say anything, Beast Boy shifted uneasily.

"Did you know she could do that glowy super starbolt thingy?" _Ah, now he was starting to sound more like his usual self._

"Her starbolts are tied to her emotions. She was under an insane amount of pressure. I'm just surprised she didn't bring the roof down on top of us." Subconsciously, I reached up and touched the corner of my dry, cracked lips. Without Raven's help to heal the burns, I knew I looked like I'd just been rescued of a desert island after weeks with no shade. Between the two of us I'm sure Beast Boy and I made quite the pair. Him green, and me tomato red dressed in the loud colors of a traffic light.

"She was going to kill him, wasn't she?" he asked quietly. His ears drooped. If he was asking me then he already knew the answer. He just wanted me to tell him a different one. I had a no-exceptions, no-second chances, no-kill policy. Under no circumstances was it ever okay for a Titan to lose control and kill someone—not Slade, not even the Joker. If any of us ever crossed that line it meant immediate termination from the Titans. Accidents happened, but even those went under serious review. When Starfire had gone for Joker's throat it hadn't been an accident and there had been no hesitation in her. Still…

"That wasn't her," I said softly. I reached out and wrapped my hand around hers where it lay on her bed. Her skin felt warm and soft. At my touch some of the readings on the monitors hooked up to her began to beep and jump. My eyes flew to her face, but she didn't wake.

"Uh, if you want to sit with her I think I'll go get some sleep," he said, scratching the back of his neck. Not for the first time I wondered how aware of pheromone levels and nonverbal cues Beast Boy was in his human form. I had only touched Starfire's hand, but the moment our skin made contact I felt a connection deep in my soul take root. I needed to hold her, to reassure myself that she was safe and that Joker hadn't destroyed that sweet, innocent soul that made her so uniquely beautiful to me. Without waiting for a response, Beast Boy shuffled off to his room. After a moment, I glanced at the door to make sure he was really gone. Then I threw my arms around the girl on the bed and dragged her against me in a bone-crushing hug.

"Starfire, I am so sorry you got pulled into this," I murmured against her neck. "You were never supposed to know who I was. If I hadn't taken off my mask then none of this would have happened. Bruce was right." _And didn't that just choke me on the way out._ "Star, you are the strongest person I have ever met. You can do things I've never dreamed were even possible, but you can't do this to me now. Please, wake up for me Star. I need you to be all right."

There was only so much healing that Raven could do, especially after fighting off Joker's minions and teleporting the whole team twice across the country. There were still fade bruises on her skin and I spied a burn mark near the hollow of her throat where they had stuck her with one of their wands. As much as I wanted her to, she didn't wake. Life isn't like it is in the movies, where a declaration of love can bring someone back from the dead. Starfire would wake only once her healing cycle had been completed. Until then I had to wait. But Tamaraneans craved touch, and that much I could give her. I pressed the button on the side of her bed so that it lifted into a seated position and eased myself down on the cot beside her. I wrapped my arm around her, hugging her warm body against mine and stroked her hair.

I pressed her cheek against my chest. She made a tiny noise and snuggled closer against me. My heart did a tiny somersault. I may not have any superpowers, but the girl in my arms could cripple me faster than a kryptonite bullet to Superman's spine. Pressing a kiss to the top of her head, I made a mental note to ask Clark how he managed to stay away when Lois was hurt and the world needed Superman. At that moment, every Titan alarm in the Tower could have gone off and all the superhuman heroes on the Justice League couldn't have pried me from that spot.

Three days we waited. Three agonizingly long days of arguing with the others, fending off questions, and staring at Starfire, afraid to miss even the tiniest flicker of life behind her closed eyelids. Raven and Cyborg were understandably upset with me. So much had happened in the past couple of days that I almost forgot the cover story I had told them of going along to make sure Dick Grayson didn't try anything funny with my girl. Where had I been when the Joker ran off with my girl then? Why hadn't I called them sooner? There was only one answer I could give them that would get them off my case: Batman. One word. Enough said.

"I know you're hiding something from us," said Raven as she sat with me beside Star's bed. "Your emotions are all over the place and I still can't get into Starfire's mind." I shot her a look. Surprisingly she had been the worst one to deal with since I'd gotten back. Cyborg and I had one shouting match where he blamed me for everything and I got defensive before we were relatively cool with each other again. But Raven kept launching surprise attacks, and honed with that desert-dry wit of hers she could really cut me to my soul if I wasn't on my guard.

"It could be there are some things you don't need to know, Raven," I snapped.

"Starfire is retreating into her mind. That's what victims of severe trauma do."

"She was tortured," I said through gritted teeth. "How much more traumatic does it get?" _Oh but it does…_ A wave of depression hit me before I could throw up a mask to shield it. Raven narrowed her eyes.

"It's more than that, isn't it? Guilt and anger I would expect from you, but that's not what you've been giving off."

"And what have I been giving off exactly? Joy?"

"Mostly you've been relieved. Even in that place when we saw her tied to that chair you weren't angry the way you should have been. I expected you to explode. The moment you saw her I felt…" she cast around for a word and I clenched my teeth as I waited. "Helplessness." My head reared back at the unpalatable choice.

"And when she tried to kill Joker you weren't conflicted and angry the way you should have been, you were desperate. You knew exactly what she was going to do, which is why you threw yourself in front of her rather than let her get her hands on him. And when she nearly ripped out your throat instead you weren't even surprised. All I got from you was guilt and sorrow and regret. Those aren't the emotions of an overprotective boyfriend who just watched a sadistic murderer torturing the love of his life." By then I was shaking with barely suppressed irritation. How dare Raven turn my feelings against me and tell me I had chosen the wrong ones for the moment. How dare she bring them all back and make me feel them again when it was over and Starfire was safe. I wasn't even going to acknowledge the last comment.

"You saw her when she first got to Earth," I said finally. Out of everyone Raven was the one who would understand with the least amount of details. "She was practically feral."

"She was an escaped prisoner on the way to a life of slavery. Of course she was feral." _Give nothing away._ I focused on my heartbeat and the steady beep of the monitor that kept track of Star's. Raven continued to study me, but I had my barriers firmly in place now. Short of launching an attack on my mind she would get nothing out of me. Impatient with me, she sighed.

"When she first got to the Tower she used to dream about going to the Citadel. If reality was anything like the stuff she made up in her mind then it's a good thing she came to Earth and found the Titans." _We were too late! _I screamed the words inside my mind. On the surface I kept my face still as stone. Did Raven really not see it? Could she not guess why the former prisoner had overreacted when she woke up and found herself in chains again? I opened my mouth to make a scathing comment, disappointed with Raven for her lack of perception, when I felt a small tug on my sleeve.

"Ro-bin?"


	19. Chapter 19

**A/N: Almost at the end. Just a little more to go. **

* * *

Once Starfire wakes from a healing sleep she hates to spend any more time in the infirmary than she has to. Weakness is frowned upon on Tameran, and even though we don't judge her by the same standards she refuses to let on when she's sick or hurt if she can help it. I can't blame her, I'm the same way. After the initial round of celebratory hugs from everyone, she asked me to walk her back to her room. The others still had questions—Beast Boy was practically bursting with them—but they were content to have her awake and smiling again, and the questions could wait.

We walked through the corridors side by side, no words, no touches or gestures. It was as if we had reverted to the way things had been before everything started, before she knew I was Dick Grayson. We reached her door and when it slid open we both stared at each other as if we weren't sure what to do next. There were only two choices: forward or back.

I stepped across the threshold and pulled her hard against my chest. The door slid shut behind us.

"Starfire I'm so sorry," I murmured for what felt like the thousandth time, even though this was the first time she'd been conscious to hear it. She patted my head politely. _Politely?_

"Do not do the 'beating up' of yourself, Robin. I should have fought harder to free myself." Her words were strangely dispassionate. _She_ was strangely dispassionate. This was the girl who flung her arms around my neck every time I bought an economy pack of mustard from the grocery store and sobbed when Raven explained the purpose for a can of Raid. The Titans and I had been half-frantic with worry about her for almost a week and she seemed to be shrugging it off. My arms slid away from her and I tried to peer into her face, but she turned away.

"It worked at least," I said, changing the subject. "According to Batman, Slade now believes that Dick and Robin are two different people again." She sat down in front of her white vanity and picked up her comb to brush her hair.

"That is good news." My eyes followed the comb down the long ribbon of hair. It made a soft swishing sound with each stroke. _Swish, swish, swish, swish…_ Something was wrong. She didn't want to talk about it, but I knew from experience that she couldn't keep whatever it was bottled inside her.

"Joker's back in Arkham Asylum," I prodded. Her hand trembled.

"That is also good to hear."

"Starfire—"

"_No! _I do not wish to talk about it. I am the OK!" she cried shrilly, flinging her brush down with such force that a crack appeared in the vanity mirror. I pressed my lips together, braced for a different kind of battle than the ones I was used to.

"Starfire…?"

"You were not there!" she shouted at me. Her words ripped through me like a spear through the chest. _She blamed me?_ It's one thing to blame yourself when a situation goes bad, but it's a totally different level of guilt when the person you failed blames you too.

"I swore I would never be helpless again, and I failed myself," she said, burying her face in her hands. _Oh, it wasn't me she blamed… _The emotions she had been trying so hard to hide were surging to the surface now. I stayed where I was, not sure whether to go to her or back away. She continued. "I still hear the laughter. It just goes on and on, and there is nothing I could do to make it stop. I was so weak. It sickens me."

"Don't say that!" My voice was sharper than I'd meant it to be, but I was angry now.

"What they did to you was not your fault. You weren't helpless. You saved yourself." We weren't talking about the fairgrounds now. This had never been about the fairgrounds.

"If you had not rescued me, Robin I…"

"You would have found a way. All I did was take off the handcuffs." She closed her eyes and tears leaked out from beneath her eyelashes. At the sight of them my restraint broke and I crossed the room and wrapped my arms around her from behind. This girl, this beautiful girl, was everything that I wished I could be, but she was every bit as broken as I was. She turned her face against my belly, so that her nose burrowed against my sternum. Her hands curled in my shirt as tears soaked the fabric.

Eventually we relocated to the edge of her bed where she curled up against my side and told me what they had done—all of it. The Psions, the Gordanians, her father, her sister… So much pain and torture, it made Joker's tazers look as harmless as the old handshake gag. Parts of it made me sick to my soul, and at others I shared her hopelessness. So much had been done to her. Watching my parents fall to their deaths seemed small in comparison. No one had ever experimented on me, or forced me to watch others explode when their bodies couldn't contain the sheer amounts of energy being pumped into them. Joker may have messed with my mind on occasion, but I had never suffered the degradation and humiliations she had during her time as a slave for the Gordanians.

By the time it was over my chest was clenched so tight I was certain I'd find bruises around my heart.

"You are the strongest person I know," I whispered unevenly. "What you've been through… God, I don't know how you find the happiness to fly." She smiled sadly and brushed her cheek against my shoulder.

"You have given me reasons to fly, Robin. Before I came to Earth I was considered weak because my planet does not have a word for 'nice.' You showed me it was okay to be 'nice.' And it was not until I engaged in lip contact with you to acquire your language that I could summon enough happiness to fly to fend off the Gordanian fleet." _The wonders that did for my ego. _"I apologize if you were offended. Kissing is not a part of Tamaranean mating rituals." _And there's that phrase again. Another place, another time for that talk…_

"You didn't offend me," I reassured her quickly. "I was a little…stunned."

She giggled, an incredible sound in light of what we had been talking about only moments before.

"I did wonder why you appeared so shocked."

"You have no idea how many times I replayed that moment in my mind," I confessed. After everything she had revealed the least I could do was lay a little of my heart out in the open for her to see. "I sort of convinced myself that the reason you never tried to kiss me again was because I wasn't any good at it." Heat flooded my face, and she giggled again, perfectly delighted by my awkward admission.

"On Tamaran a male shows his intentions to mate by attempting to dominate the female. You are always encouraging me in battle and complimenting my strength. I believed you considered me merely a competent ally." I threw back my head and laughed straight from my belly. _Oh the irony!_ I'd practically bent over backwards trying to be nice to her, desperately hoping that I could make her like me, and all the while it was sending her the message that I only wanted to be friends. Feeling playful, I grabbed her hands and pushed her backwards until she was lying flat on her back on the bed with me kneeling over her. Her eyes widened with surprise and sparkled with fascination.

"I didn't realize I was sending the wrong signals before. Is this better?" Before she could say anything I kissed her the way I'd been wanting to all week. Her lips were every bit as soft as I remembered and they parted for me almost instantly. Fingernails raked the back of my neck, and she pulled me against her as our mouths moved together. Only when I started getting a little breathless did I lift my head.

"Well?"

"Oh yes, I believe I understand your intentions most accurately now. But please do continue."

_Not a problem._

* * *

**They were both in need of some fluffiness. **


	20. Chapter 20

**A/N: **So sorry for the long delay. Real life got in the way. Hopefully a longer chapter will make up for it.

* * *

Starfire and I agreed that we would keep each other's secrets for now. She didn't want to face the sympathy the rest of the Titans would give her, and I knew Bruce definitely wasn't ready for Beast Boy to know who Batman was and where to find him. It was freeing to finally have someone who knew all of me. It had been different with Babs. The barriers I had erected in Gotham weren't necessary outside the city limits, and I could tell Starfire anything without fear of pity or teasing. The whole girlfriend thing was in a word: awesome! That part we didn't keep secret, though we restrained ourselves to the privacy of our own rooms. I was still the leader and the last thing I needed was to find myself on one of Cyborg's security cameras pinning her up against the wall with my hands…like I said, awesome.

A week later, I sat in my darkened bedroom staring at my computer screen. Starfire had gone for a patrol with Beast Boy. A chat window blipped into existence, and Clark Kent's face appeared. He looked reserved, and his lack of cheer instantly put me on my guard. I hadn't spoken to him yet, but I hadn't forgotten his part in what had gone down at the manor.

"I thought Superman didn't lie," I said, narrowing my eyes. Clark's jaw tensed slightly, but his expression didn't change.

"I didn't lie. Had anything happened in Jump I would have gotten there before the Titans could." He was probably right.

"You could have told me that was the plan."

"I gave my word that I wouldn't." _So he won't break a promise to Bruce, but he can lie to my face without batting an eye. Way to stick to your principles._

"Why didn't you help us get Starfire back? Do you have any idea what they did to her?" His shoulders sagged and he ran a hand through his dark hair. He looked so remorseful and chagrined that I regretted my harsh tone. Clark wasn't Bruce. Of course he realized what his absence had meant for Starfire.

"You have my utmost apology, Robin. Batman told me you and your team had everything under control. If I thought for a moment—"

"It's all right," I interrupted, bothered by his utter sincerity. "We got her out, Joker's in jail, no harm no foul."

"I know you don't mean that, but thank you," he said with a weary smile. For a moment I wondered what it would have been like if Clark had been the one to take me under his wing after the accident at the circus. He was like Starfire; he wore his heart on his sleeve and he felt everything with all that he was. But Bruce was right. Lois crippled him more than kryptonite, and as a mere mortal with no superpowers I'd needed the guidance of a man who'd made himself into a superhero through sheer stubbornness and determination.

"And Starfire, is she all right?"

"I think so," I said. "Ever since we made things official she hasn't stopped floating around the tower." His face split into a wide grin that wiped away all the remorse and sadness of moments before. His happiness was infectious and I caught myself grinning self-consciously.

"Congratulations Robin," he said wholeheartedly. "I'm glad things have worked out for you. I trust you've learned your lesson about secret identities?"

"Yep. Sure have. The lesson is: a pair of glasses and a hairstyle change doesn't fool anyone."

"He's right, you know."

I think my heart stopped for him. No one, and I mean no one, can sneak up on Clark Kent. He's got the unfair advantage of being able to hear your heartbeat from two city blocks away and pick up your scent before he enters the building. The fact that he let her hear his conversation meant that he was finally ready for her to know the truth. She was standing somewhere behind him, but his webcam wasn't in the right position to let me see exactly where. It was positioned correctly for me to see the flash of relief that his days of hiding the truth from her were finally over.

"You'll have to excuse me," said Clark formally, and only I was able to see the mixture of fear and excitement on his face as he turned to face Lois.

"Wait," I said, before he could terminate the chat. "Lois?"

There was a moment's pause before she stepped up to the camera. She was a pretty lady with a pale oval face and shoulder-length dark brown hair. At the sight of me her slender eyebrows rose in surprise, but her lips pressed together in determination not to give away her awe—I am after all a fairly well-known hero myself.

"Robin." The greeting was clipped, a hint at the storm that brewed just under the surface preparing to crash down on poor Clark's head. He recognized it too. The Man of Steel actually cringed. I couldn't help myself. I grinned widely.

"Don't be too hard on him. There isn't anyone on this earth that he respects more than you." Her stern demeanor softened ever so slightly, but she lifted her chin stubbornly.

"He's got a lot to answer for." I laughed as Clark gulped.

"I'm sure he does. But for the sake of every member of the Justice League, please don't break his heart. I don't think Batman could stand his moping."

"All right, Robin, that's enough," snapped Clark, scowling even though his cheeks were a bright pink. My grin widened. Payback was fun. It was about time I got to laugh at someone else's expense, and I could tell already that Lois wasn't really as mad at him as she was pretending to be.

"Whose heart would I be breaking? Clark's or Superman's?"

"Whose heart matters?" I countered. It was the first time I'd ever spoken to her, and I liked her already. No wonder Clark was head over heels. She had a sense of humor and she took no prisoners. I had the feeling that once they sorted out their differences I would have a new ally in giving Clark a hard time.

"Superman's heart is just as invulnerable as the rest of him, and I couldn't break it with a two-ton sledgehammer. Clark's on the other hand… You may inform the Justice League that they can breathe easy. I won't hurt the farm boy any more than he deserves."

"Excellent! Did you hear that, Clark?" I teased.

"Goodbye Robin." He terminated the call before I could find one last witty thing to say.

I knew exactly what he was going through, and I knew now from experience that he would not regret letting her finally know the truth. Lois was a smart woman, from what I had seen, and she was exactly the type of no-nonsense personality that he needed when he tried to blame himself for all of the problems in the world he couldn't fix.

Red lights flashed in my room and the alarm blared annoyingly loud. I sprang out of my chair and dashed for the door. I nearly crashed into Cyborg as he barreled out of his bedroom, and I led the way to the common room where Raven was waiting for us. Cyborg went to the consul and pulled up an area map of the wharf, where the alert had been triggered. I didn't need to see any more to know exactly who we were dealing with. Slade.

My communicator vibrated alongside a ringtone version of "I Will Always Love You." I shot Cyborg a dark look before I flipped it open to see Starfire's concerned face.

"Don't look at me man. That's got Beast Boy written all over it." Despite the seriousness of the situation the corner of his mouth twitched and I silently vowed to strangle the changeling the next time I had the chance.

"Robin, Beast Boy and I have Slade cornered at the wharf. We request permission to engage."

"No. Wait until I get there."

_No way was anyone else taking Slade down other than me._

Ten minutes later, thanks to Cyborg pushing the limits on the T-car's speedometer, we screeched to a halt a short distance from the wharf. Beast Boy and Starfire came over to brief us. Slade was inside the warehouse. His men were loading large crates onto one of the cargo ships. He was surveying everything from a platform high above everyone else.

"Raven, teleport me inside. He'll be expecting us to come in together."

She nodded and her eyes glowed white as she murmured her familiar chant. The swirling power swallowed me and then spat me out mere feet behind him. Before he had the chance to react, I ducked down and kicked his legs out from beneath him. Glass shattered as Starfire plowed through a window below to announce the presence of the Titans. I didn't worry about my team. They could handle his men—they always did. Slade was mine.

"Ah, Robin. How nice to see you ag—"

I managed to land a swift uppercut into the bottom of his jaw, snapping his head around before he could start in on his mocking. It was a short-lived victory because his foot shot out and caught me square in the stomach.

"I take it you prefer to be called Dick Grayson."

"If you think I'm Dick Grayson then you're not nearly as clever as you think you are," I said. My heart soared when he fell into a contemplative silence and lashed out with several swift kicks that I dodged around easily.

"Why is it that Robin appeared in Gotham for the first time in months on the eve of Grayson's abrupt return to society?"

"Starfire showed up in Gotham that night. You think she's really a Wayne in disguise too?"

"Ah yes, you're little girlfriend," he breathed, pausing to look over the railing to where Starfire was fending off two thugs with low-watt starbolts aimed at their feet. The way he looked at her sent shivers racing up my spine. "I thought you were above such weaknesses."

"Ever picked up a tabloid? If I was Grayson she'd have fried me by now."

Slade froze. A long moment went by before her threw back his head and laughed. He doesn't laugh like Joker, not that insane high-pitched cackle that drives you to your knees with your hands over your ears to try and block it out. No, his laugh was on the other end of the spectrum, a deep low chuckle that made every cell in your body quake with dread.

"You've thought of everything, haven't you, Robin? For once, I'm actually impressed."

"If you liked that then you'll really like _this_."

A pair of black spectral hands shot up through the floor and grabbed his feet. They wound around his legs and climbed up his body so that he couldn't move. I darted forward and snapped a pair of handcuffs onto his wrists—not that I expected that to hold him.

"Clever, but not quite clever enough," he said, narrowing his eyes at me. Just then we all heard an unmistakable beeping sound. I turned and ran in the opposite direction. Beast Boy morphed into a pterodactyl and launched Cyborg into the air through a hole in the roof. Raven phased out of harm's way. Behind me the robot exploded just as I fired my grappling gun and leapt into the air.

Starfire wrapped her arms around me from behind and carried me safely ahead of the blast.

"_Again_?" Beast Boy complained once we rendezvoused beside the T-car. "Another freaking robot?!" He threw his hands into the air in frustration. "How many of those things does he have?"

"Don't worry, Beast Boy, we'll find him," I said, smacking my fist into my palm to emphasize my point. For once, I didn't care about Slade slipping through my fingers, because for the first time in what felt like ever I had actually gotten the upper hand. Despite his laughter, I knew I'd thrown enough doubt into his mind that I didn't have to worry about him exposing Dick Grayson as Robin. I was so happy I wanted to cheer. I settled for simply taking Starfire's hand and giving it a discreet squeeze. She squeezed it back, and somehow that was just as good.


End file.
